The Ghuzz or Turkmen also known as Oguzes (a linguistic term designating the Western Turkic or Oghuz languages from the Oghur languages) are a historical Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia during the early medieval period.

The name Oguz is a Common Turkic word for "tribe".

The Oguz confederation migrates westward from the Jeti-su area after a conflict with Karluks.

The founders of the Ottoman Empire are descendants of the Oguz Yabgu State.In the 9th century, the Oguzes from the Aral steppes drive Bechens from the Emba and Ural River region toward the west.

In the 10th century they inhabit the steppe of the rivers Sari-su, Turgai, and Emba to the north of Lake Balkhash of modern day Kazakhstan.

A clan of this nation, the Seljuks, embraces Islam and in the 11th century and enters Persia, where they found the Great Seljuk Empire.

Similarly, in the 11th century a Tengriist Oghuz clan—referred to as Uzes or Torks in the Russian chronicles—overthrows Pecheneg supremacy in the Russian steppe.

Harried by another Turkic horde, the Kipchaks —these Oghuz penetrate as far as the lower Danube, cross it and invade he Balkans, where they are either crushed or struck down by an outbreak of plague, causing the survivors either to flee or to join the Byzantine imperial forces as mercenaries (1065).

The Oghuz seem to have been related to the Pechenegs, some of whom were clean-shaven and others of whom had small 'goatee' beards In later centuries, they adapted and applied their own traditions and institutions to the ends of the Islamic world and emerged as empire-builders with a constructive sense of statecraft.Linguistically, the Oghuz are listed together with the old Kimaks of the middle Yenisei of the Ob, the old Kipchaks who later emigrated to southern Russia, and the modern Kirghiz in one particular Turkic group, distinguished from the rest by the mutation of the initial y sound to j (dj).