Henry Yule

“ BEZOAR, s. This word belongs, not to the A.-Indian colloquial, but to the language of old oriental trade and materia medica. The word is a corruption of the P. name of the thing, pādzahr, 'pellens venenum,' or pāzahr. The first form is given by Meninski as the etymology of the word, and this is accepted by Littré [and the N.E.D.] . The quotations of Littré from Ambrose Paré show that the word was used generically for 'an antidote,' and in this sense it is used habitually by Avicenna. ”

“ David, 2nd May, to the Court (MS. in India Office) .
BAYA, s. H. baiā [bayā] , the Weaver-bird, as it is called in books of Nat. Hist., Ploceus baya, Blyth (Fam. Fringillidae) . This clever little bird is not only in its natural state the builder of those remarkable pendant nests which are such striking objects, hanging from eaves or palm-branches; but it is also docile to a singular degree in domestication, and is often exhibited by itinerant natives as the performer of the most delightful tricks, as we have seen, and as is detailed in a paper of Mr Blyth's quoted by Jerdon. ”

“ BUGGY, s. In India this is a (two-wheeled) gig with a hood, like the gentleman's cab that was in vogue in London about 1830–40, before broughams came in. Latham puts a (?) after the word, and the earliest examples that he gives are from the second quarter of this century (from Praed and I. D'Israeli) . Though we trace the word much further back, we have not discovered its birthplace or etymology. The word, though used in England, has never been very common there; it is better known both in Ireland and in America. Littré gives boghei as French also. ”

“ The Shī'a Bohrās, who are essentially townspeople, and especially congregate in Surat, Burhanpur, Ujjain, &c. They are those best known far and wide by the name, and are usually devoted to trading and money-lending. Their original seat was in Guzerat, and they are most numerous there, and in the Bombay territory generally, but are also to be found in various parts of Central India and the N.-W. Provinces, [where they are all Hindus] . The word in Bombay is often used as synonymous with pedlar or boxwallah. They are generally well-to-do people, keeping very cleanly and comfortable houses. ”

“ The domestic buffalo is apparently derived from the wild buffalo (Bubalus arni, Jerd.; Bos bubalus, Blanf.) , whose favourite habitat is in the swampy sites of the Sunderbunds and Eastern Bengal, but whose haunts extend north-eastward to the head of the Assam valley, in the Terai west to Oudh, and south nearly to the Godavery; not beyond this in the Peninsula, though the animal is found in the north and north-east of Ceylon.
The domestic buffalo exists not only in India but in Java, Sumatra, and Manilla, in Mazanderan, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Adherbijan, Egypt, Turkey, and Italy. ”

“ It is difficult to arrive at the origin of this word. There are, however, several Hindi words in rural use, such as bhāt, bhantā, 'advances made to ploughmen without interest,' and bhaṭṭa, bhaṇṭā, 'ploughmen's wages in kind,' with which it is possibly connected. It has also been suggested, without much probability, that it may be allied to bahut, 'much, excess,' an idea entering into the meaning of both a and b. It is just possible that the familiar military use of the term in India may have been influenced by the existence of the European military term bât or bât-money. ”

“ BARRACKPORE, n.p. The auxiliary Cantonment of Calcutta, from which it is 15 m. distant, established in 1772. Here also is the country residence of the Governor-General, built by Lord Minto, and much frequented in former days before the annual migration to Simla was established. The name is a hybrid. (See ACHANOCK) .
BARRAMUHUL, n.p. H. Bāramaḥall, 'Twelve estates'; an old designation of a large part of what is now the district of Salem in the Madras Presidency. The identification of the Twelve Estates is not free from difficulty; [see a full note in Le Fanu's Man. of Salem, i. 83, seqq.] . ”

“ BAMBOO, s. Applied to many gigantic grasses, of which Bambusa arundinacea and B. vulgaris are the most commonly cultivated; but there are many other species of the same and allied genera in use; natives of tropical Asia, Africa, and America. This word, one of the commonest in Anglo-Indian daily use, and thoroughly naturalised in English, is of exceedingly obscure origin. According to Wilson it is Canarese bănbŭ [or as the Madras Admin. Man. (Gloss. s.v.) writes it, bombu, which is said to be "onomatopaeic from the crackling and explosions when they burn"] . ”

“ An inhabited quarter, a village. H. bastī, from Skt. vas = 'dwell.' Many years ago a native in Upper India said to a European assistant in the Canal Department: "You Feringis talk much of your country and its power, but we know that the whole of you come from five villages" (pānch basti) . The word is applied in Calcutta to the separate groups of huts in the humbler native quarters, the sanitary state of which has often been held up to reprobation. ”

“ The word has spread westward into Arabic, Turkish, and, in special senses, into European languages, and eastward into India, where it has generally been adopted into the vernaculars. The popular pronunciation is băzár. In S. India and Ceylon the word is used for a single shop or stall kept by a native. The word seems to have come to S. Europe very early. F. Balducci Pegolotti, in his Mercantile Handbook (c. 1340) gives Bazarra as a Genoese word for 'market-place' (Cathay, &c. ii. 286) . The word is adopted into Malay as pāsār, [or in the poems pasara] . ”

“ Mr. Skeat writes: "Although buluh is the standard Malay, and bambu apparently introduced, I think bambu is the form used in the low Javanese vernacular, which is quite a different language from high Javanese. Even in low Javanese, however, it may be a borrowed word. It looks curiously like a trade corruption of the common Malay word samambu, which means the well-known 'Malacca cane,' both the bamboo and the Malacca cane being articles of export. Klinkert says that the samambu is a kind of rattan, which was used as a walking-stick, and which was called the Malacca cane by the English. ”

“ Wilson writes the word bānglā, giving it as a Bengālī word, and as probably derived from Banga, Bengal. This is fundamentally the etymology mentioned by Bp. Heber in his Journal (see below) , and that etymology is corroborated by our first quotation, from a native historian, as well as by that from F. Buchanan. It is to be remembered that in Hindustan proper the adjective 'of or belonging to Bengal' is constantly pronounced as bangălā or banglā. Thus one of the eras used in E. India is distinguished as the Banglā era. ”

“ A bungalow may also be a small building of the type which we have described, but of temporary material, in a garden, on a terraced roof for sleeping in, &c., &c. The word has also been adopted by the French in the East, and by Europeans generally in Ceylon, China, Japan, and the coast of Africa. ”

“ The word is used in Sea Hindustani, in the forms bansār, and bangsāl for a 'store-room' (Roebuck) .
Bankshall is in fact one of the oldest of the words taken up by foreign traders in India. And its use not only by Correa (c. 1561) but by King John (1524) , with the regularly-formed Portuguese plural of words in -al, shows how early it was adopted by the Portuguese. Indeed, Correa does not even explain it, as is his usual practice with Indian terms.
More than one serious etymology has been suggested:— (1) . ”

“ A Hindu dancing-girl. The word is especially used by French writers, from whom it has been sometimes borrowed as if it were a genuine Indian word, particularly characteristic of the persons in question. The word is in fact only a Gallicized form of the Portuguese bailadeira, from bailar, to dance. Some 50 to 60 years ago there was a famous ballet called Le dieu et la bayadère, and under this title Punch made one of the most famous hits of his early days by presenting a cartoon of Lord Ellenborough as the Bayadère dancing before the idol of Somnāth ”

“ BOBBERY-PACK, s. A pack of hounds of different breeds, or (oftener) of no breed at all, wherewith young officers hunt jackals or the like; presumably so called from the noise and disturbance that such a pack are apt to raise. ”

“ The name of a low caste, habitually employed as sweepers, and in the lowest menial offices, the man being a house sweeper and dog-boy, [his wife an Ayah] . Its members are found throughout Northern and Western India, and every European household has a servant of this class. The colloquial application of the term bungy to such servants is however peculiar to Bombay, [but the word is commonly used in the N.W.P. but always with a contemptuous significance] . In the Bengal Pry. he is generally called Mehtar (q.v.) , and by politer natives Halālkhor (see HALALCORE) , &c. ”

“ BARBIERS, s. This is a term which was formerly very current in the East, as the name of a kind of paralysis, often occasioned by exposure to chills. It began with numbness and imperfect command of the power of movement, sometimes also affecting the muscles of the neck and power of articulation, and often followed by loss of appetite, emaciation, and death. ”

“ The disease prevails endemically in Ceylon, and in Peninsular India in the coast-tracts, and up to 40 or 60 m. inland; also in Burma and the Malay region, including all the islands, at least so far as New Guinea, and also Japan, where it is known as kakké: [see Chamberlain, Things Japanese, 3rd ed. p. 238 seqq.] . It is very prevalent in certain Madras Jails. The name has become somewhat old-fashioned, but it has recurred of late years, especially in hospital reports from Madras and Burma. It is frequently epidemic, and some of the Dutch physicians regard it as infectious. ”

“ A small fish, abounding on all the coasts of India and the Archipelago; Harpodon nehereus of Buch. Hamilton; the specific name being taken from the Bengali name nehare. The fish is a great delicacy when fresh caught and fried. When dried it becomes the famous Bombay Duck (see DUCKS, BOMBAY) , which is now imported into England.
The origin of either name is obscure. Molesworth gives the word as Mahratti with the spelling bombīl, or bombīla (p. 595 a) . Bummelo occurs in the Supp. (1727) to Bluteau's Dict. in the Portuguese form bambulim, as "the name of a very savoury fish in India." ”

“ In the Life of Hyder Ali by Hussain 'Ali Khān Kirmāni, tr. by Miles, we read that Hyder's Kuzzaks were under the command of "Ghazi Khan Bede." But whether this leader was so called from leading the "Bede" Horse, or gave his name to them, does not appear. Miles has the highly intelligent note: 'Bede is another name for (Kuzzak) : Kirkpatrick supposed the word Bede meant infantry, which, I believe, it does not' (p. 36) . The quotation from the Life of Tippoo seems to indicate that it was the name of a caste. ”

“ The name of the old Portuguese settlement in Bengal about a mile above Hoogly, where there still exists a monastery, said to be the oldest church in Bengal (see Imp. Gazeteer) . The name is a Port. corruption of bandar, 'the wharf'; and in this shape the word was applied among the Portuguese to a variety of places. Thus in Correa, under 1541–42, we find mention of a port in the Red Sea, near the mouth, called Bandel dos Malemos ('of the Pilots') . ”

“ Nothing is harder than to find intelligible explanations of the distinction between the numerous varieties of cotton stuffs formerly exported from India to Europe under a still greater variety of names; names and trade being generally alike obsolete. Baftas however survived in the Tariffs till recently. [Bafta is at present the name applied to a silk fabric. (See quotation from Yusuf Ali below.) In Bengal, Charpata and Noakhali in the Chittagong Division were also noted for their cotton baftas (Birdwood, Industr. Arts, 249) .] ”

“ The Borā of Bombay is often a boxwālā, and the boxwālā in that region is commonly called Borā. (See BORA.)
BOY, s.
a. A servant. In Southern India and in China a native personal servant is so termed, and is habitually summoned with the vocative 'Boy!' The same was formerly common in Jamaica and other W. I. Islands. Similar uses are familiar of puer (e.g. in the Vulgate Dixit Giezi puer Viri Dei. II Kings v. 20) , Ar. walad, παιδάριον, garçon, knave (Germ. Knabe) ; and this same word is used for a camp-servant in Shakespeare, where Fluelen says: "Kill the Poys and the luggage! ”

“ The most usual class of house occupied by Europeans in the interior of India; being on one story, and covered by a pyramidal roof, which in the normal bungalow is of thatch, but may be of tiles without impairing its title to be called a bungalow. ”

“ In the Madras and Bombay Presidencies this is the title usually applied to the head-servant of any English or quasi-English household. He generally makes the daily market, has charge of domestic stores, and superintends the table. As his profession is one which affords a large scope for feathering a nest at the expense of a foreign master, it is often followed at Madras by men of comparatively good caste. ”