"Hindu Kush" is generally translated as 'Killer of Hindu' or 'Hindu-Killer', due the dangerous passes located in those mountains.[b ;[d ; , Quote: "(..) the Muslim Arabs also applied the name 'Khurasan' to all the Muslim provinces to the east of the Great Desert and up to the Hindu-Kush ('Hindu killer') mountains, the Chinese desert and the Pamir mountains".</ref> Boyle's Persian-English dictionary indicates that the suffix -"koš" is the present stem of the verb 'to kill' ("koštan" ). According to linguist Francis Joseph Steingass, the suffix -"kush" means 'a male; (imp. of kushtan in comp.) a killer, who kills, slays, murders, oppresses as "azhdaha-kush".'