Noun

1. an administrative region under the Ottoman Empire, a subdivision of a vilayet

   • 1973: This lymphatic monster had once blocked the distinguished pharynx of Lord Blatherard Osmo, who at the time occupied the Novy Pazar desk at the Foreign Office, an obscure penance for the previous century of British policy on the Eastern Question, for on this obscure sanjak had once hinged the entire fate of Europe. — Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow