Shere Khan

Shere Khan ˈʃɪər_ˈkɑːn (शेर ख़ान; شیر خان) is a fictional Bengal tiger and the main antagonist of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book and its adaptations. It is a translation of English denomination of the bengal tiger: "Royal Tiger" into Hindi language, where "shere" means "tiger" and "khan" is the mongol word for "king" and the name of the Indian Moghul ruler family. According to The Kipling Society, the word shere (or "shir") translates as "tiger", and khan is a title of distinction, used together "to show that he is chief among tigers." Other sources indicate Shere may mean "tiger" or "lion" in Azerbaijani, Persian, Kurdish, Hindi-Urdu, and Punjabi, and that khan translates as "king", or "leader", in a number of languages influenced by the Mongols, including Pashto and Hindi-Urdu.