aga, in Turkey, person of high rank or social position, especially during the era of the Ottoman Empire. Combined with the names of military units or administrative departments, it formed the official titles borne by the chief officers of the Janissaries and of the cavalry, by the principal members of the imperial household, and by the eunuchs who controlled the sultan’s harem. Later it was applied to officers of lower rank and, socially, as a term of respect, to heads of families and villages and to landowners. In republican Turkey the official title disappeared, the social use of the word surviving only among the lower classes.
As a title of respect, aga has also been used for Islāmic religious leaders, notably for the leader of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīte sect of the Shīʿite Muslims.