Henry Yule

“ The fruit of the small Citrus medica, var. acida, Hooker, is that generally called lime in India, approaching as it does very nearly to the fruit of the West India Lime. It is often not much bigger than a pigeon's egg, and one well-known miniature lime of this kind is called by the natives from its thin skin kāghazī nīmbū, or 'paper lime.' This seems to bear much the same relation to the lemon that the miniature thin-skinned orange, which in London shops is called Tangerine, bears to the "China orange." ”

“ Hind. lishtī, English word, 'a list.'
LONG-CLOTH, s. The usual name in India for (white) cotton shirtings, or Lancashire calico; but first applied to the Indian cloth of like kind exported to England, probably because it was made of length unusual in India; cloth for native use being ordinarily made in pieces sufficient only to clothe one person. Or it is just possible that it may have been a corruption or misapprehension of lungi (see LOONGHEE) . ”

“ You always add a nonsense-word; is it for euphony?" "Oh, Asylum of the Universe, may I be your sacrifice! No respectable person in Shīrāz does so, only the lūtī-pūtī says it!"
LOQUOT, LOQUAT, s. A sub-acid fruit, a native of China and Japan, which has been naturalised in India and in Southern Europe. In Italy it is called nespola giapponese (Japan medlar) . It is Eriobotrya japonica, Lindl. The name is that used in S. China, lu-küh, pron. at Canton lu-kwat, and meaning 'rush-orange.' Elsewhere in China it is called pi-pa. ”

“ This is taken from the S. Indian form of the word, which in N. India is Skt. and Hind. liñga, 'a token, badge,' &c., thence the symbol of Śiva which is so extensively an object of worship among the Hindus, in the form of a cylinder of stone. The great idol of Somnāth, destroyed by Mahmūd of Ghazni, and the object of so much romantic narrative, was a colossal symbol of this kind. In the quotation of 1838 below, the word is used simply for a badge of caste, which is certainly the original Skt. meaning, but is probably a mistake as attributed in that sense to modern vernacular use. ”

“ The use of lascar in the modern sense by Pyrard de Laval shows that this use was already general on the west coast at the beginning of the 17th century, [also see quotation from Pringle below] ; whilst the curious distinction which Pyrard makes between Lascar and Lascari, and Dr. Fryer makes between Luscar and Lascar (accenting probably Lúscar and Lascár) shows that lashkarī for a soldier was still in use. In Ceylon the use of the word lascareen for a local or civil soldier long survived; perhaps is not yet extinct. The word lashkari does not seem to occur in the Āīn. ”

“ The animal is well described by Aelian in the following quotation, which will recall to many what they have witnessed in the suburbs of Benares and other great Hindu cities. The Langūr of the Prasii is P. Entellus.
c. 250.—"Among the Prasii of India they say that there exists a kind of ape with human intelligence. These animals seem to be about the size of Hyrcanian dogs. Their front hair looks all grown together, and any one ignorant of the truth would say that it was dressed artificially. The beard is like that of a satyr, and the tail strong like that of a lion. ”

“ In Hind. we have both līmū and nīmbū, which last, at least, seems to be an indigenous form. The Skt. dictionaries give nimbūka. In England we get the word through the Romance languages, Fr. limon, It. limone, Sp. limon, &c., perhaps both from the Crusades and from the Moors of Spain. [Mr. Skeat writes: "The Malay form is limau, 'a lime, lemon, or orange.' The Port. limão may possibly come from this Malay form. I feel sure that limau, which in some dialects is limar, is an indigenous word which was transferred to Europe."] ”

“ Pers. lārī. A peculiar kind of money formerly in use on the Persian Gulf, W. Coast of India, and in the Maldive Islands, in which last it survived to the last century. The name is there retained still, though coins of the ordinary form are used. It is sufficiently described in the quotations, and representations are given by De Bry and Tavernier. The name appears to have been derived from the territory of Lar on the Persian Gulf. (See under that word, [and Mr. Gray's note on Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 232 seq.] .) ”

“ The word is a corruption of the Malay nūri, 'a parrot'; but the corruption seems not to be very old, as Fryer retains the correct form. Perhaps it came through the French (see Luillier below) . [Mr. Skeat writes: "Lūri is hardly a corruption of nūri; it is rather a parallel form. The two forms appear in different dialects. Nūri may have been first introduced, and lūri may be some dialectic form of it."] The first quotation shows that lories were imported into S. India as early as the 14th century. ”

“ The word no doubt comes from the Sp. and Port. lima, which is from the Ar. līma; Fr. lime, Pers. līmū, līmūn (see LEMON) . But probably it came into English from the Portuguese in India. It is not in Minsheu (2nd ed. 1727) .
1404.—"And in this land of Guilan snow never falls, so hot is it; and it produces abundance of citrons and limes and oranges (cidras é limas é naranjas) ."—Clavijo, § lxxxvi. c. 1526.—"Another is the lime (līmū) , which is very plentiful. Its size is about that of a hen's egg, which it resembles in shape. ”

“ It very soon becomes as hard as brick, and resists the air and water much better than any brick I have seen in India.... As it is usually cut into the form of bricks for building, in several of the native dialects it is called the brick-stone (Iticacullee) [Malayāl. vettukal] .... The most proper English name would be Laterite, from Lateritis, the appellation that may be given it in science."—Buchanan, Mysore, &c., ii. 440-441. 1860.—"Natives resident in these localities (Galle and Colombo) are easily recognisable elsewhere by the general hue of their dress. ”

“ The word has been adopted in the Malay and Javanese, and other languages of the Archipelago. But it is remarkable that in all of this class of languages which have adopted the word it is used in the sense of 10,000 instead of 100,000 with the sole exception of the Lampungs of Sumatra, who use it correctly. (Crawfurd) . (See CRORE.)
We should observe that though a lack, used absolutely for a sum of money, in modern times always implies rupees, this has not always been the case. Thus in the time of Akbar and his immediate successors the revenue was settled and reckoned in laks of dams (q.v.) . ”

“ Sir Archibald Campbell, K.B. Govr. & C. in C. Madras, p. 9.
1803.—"In those parts (of the low country of Ceylon) where it is not thought requisite to quarter a body of troops, there is a police corps of the natives appointed to enforce the commands of Government in each district; they are composed of Conganies, or sergeants, Aratjies, or corporals, and Lascarines, or common soldiers, and perform the same office as our Sheriff's men or constables."—Percival's Ceylon, 222. ”

“ In Persia this word seems to be used for a kind of domestic tutor; now for a male nurse, or as he would be called in India, 'child's bearer.' In N. India it is usually applied to a native clerk writing the vernacular, or to a respectable merchant. [For the Pers. usage see Blochmann, Āīn, i. 426 note.] ”

“ What Cogan renders 'Ports of Liampoo' is portas, i.e. Gates. And the expression is remarkable as preserving a very old tradition of Eastern navigation; the oldest document regarding Arab trade to China (the Relation, tr. by Reinaud) says that the ships after crossing the Sea of Sanji 'pass the Gates of China. These Gates are in fact mountains washed by the sea; between these mountains is an opening, through which the ships pass' (p. 19) . ”

“ A name given in S. India to a race, Mussulmans in creed, but speaking Tamil, supposed to be, like the Moplahs of the west coast, the descendants of Arab emigrants by inter-marriage with native women. "There are few classes of natives in S. India, who in energy, industry, and perseverance, can compete with the Lubbay"; they often, as pedlars, go about selling beads, precious stones, &c.
1810.—"Some of these (early emigrants from Kufa) landed on that part of the Western coast of India called the Concan; the others to the eastward of C. Comorin; the descendants of the former are the Nevayets ”

“ The new town still went by the same name ... and was succeeded by Lári Bandar or the port of Lár, which is the name of the country forming the modern delta, particularly the western part."—M‘Murdo, in J. R. As. Soc. i. 29. (c) . To a Province on the north of the Persian Gulf, with its capital.
c. 1220.—Lar is erroneously described by Yakūt as a great island between Sirāf and Kish. But there is no such island. [1] It is an extensive province of the continent. ”

“ The birds of this India seem really like the creatures of Paradise."—Friar Jordanus, 29. c. 1430.—"In Bandan three kinds of parrot are found, some with red feathers and a yellow beak, and some parti-coloured which are called Nori, that is brilliant."—Conti, in India in the XVth Cent., 17. The last words, in Poggio's original Latin, are: "quos Noros appellant hoc est lucidos," showing that Conti connected the word with the Pers. nūr = "lux."
1516.—"In these islands there are many coloured parrots, of very splendid colours ”

“ The cultivator who, either on his own account or as the representative of other members of the village, pays the Government dues and is registered in the Collector's Roll according to his number; as the representative of the rest he may hold the office by descent or by election. ”

“ The word is Hind. lāṭhī and laṭhī, Mahr. laṭhṭha. This is from Prakrit laṭṭhī, for Skt. yashṭi, 'a stick,' according to the Prakrit grammar of Vararuchi (ed. Cowell, ii. 32) ; see also Lassen, Institutiones, Ling. Prakrit, 195. Jiskī lāṭhī, us kī bhaiṇs, is a Hind. proverb (cujus baculum ejus bubalus) , equivalent to the "good old rule, the simple plan."
1830.—"The natives use a very dangerous weapon, which they have been forbidden by Government to carry. I took one as a curiosity, which had been seized on a man in a fight in a village. ”

“ Sport. Mag. ed. 1873, i. 121.]
LOONGHEE, s. Hind. lungī, perhaps originally Pers. lung and lunggī; [but Platts connects it with linga] . A scarf or web of cloth to wrap round the body, whether applied as what the French call pagne, i.e. a cloth simply wrapped once or twice round the hips and tucked in at the upper edge, which is the proper Mussulman mode of wearing it; or as a cloth tucked between the legs like a dhoty (q.v.) , which is the Hindu mode, and often followed also by Mahommedans in India. ”

“ These islands are called Lequeos, the people of Malaca say they are better men, and greater and wealthier merchants, and better dressed and adorned, and more honourable than the Chinese."—Barbosa, 207. 1540.—"And they, demanding of him whence he came, and what he would have, he answered them that he was of the Kingdom of Siam [of the settlement of the Tanaucarim foreigners, and that he came from Veniaga] and as a merchant was going to traffique in the Isle of Lequios."—Pinto (orig. cap. x. xli) , in Cogan, 49. ”

“ Mr. Skeat notes that Klinkert gives—"Lontar, metathesis of ron-tal, leaf of the tal tree, a fan-palm whose leaves were once used for writing on, borassus flabelliformis." Ron is thus probably equivalent to the Malay daun, or in some dialects don, 'leaf.' The tree itself is called p'hun (pohun) tar in the E. coast of the Malay Peninsula, tar and tal being only variants of the same word. Scott, Malayan Words in English, p. 121, gives: "Lontar, a palm, dial. form of dāun tāl (tāl, Hind.) ." (See TODDY.) ”

“ And this kind of clothing is carried also to the King of Persia."—Aelian, de Nat. Animal. iv. 46.
c. 1343.—The notice of lacca in Pegolotti is in parts very difficult to translate, and we do not feel absolutely certain that it refers to the Indian product, though we believe it to be so. Thus, after explaining that there are two classes of lacca, the matura and acerba, or ripe and unripe, he goes on: "It is produced attached to stalks, i.e. to the branches of shrubs, but it ought to be clear from stalks, and earthy dust, and sand, and from costiere (?) . ”

“ But it would appear from enquiry that I have made, among friends of old standing in the Civil Service, that for some years before the issue of the Penal Code and the other reforms already mentioned, the Moolvee (maulavī) or Mahommedan Law-officer had, in some at least of the Bengal districts, practically ceased to sit with the judge, even in cases where no assessors were summoned. [2] I cannot trace any legislative authority for this, nor any Circular of the Sudder Nizamut; and it is not easy, at this time of day, to obtain much personal testimony. ”

“ A small kind of vessel used in the China coasting trade. Giles explains it as having a hull of European build, but the masts and sails Chinese fashion, generally with a European skipper and a Chinese crew. The word is said to have been introduced by the Portuguese from S. America (Giles, 81) . But Pinto's passage shows how early the word was used in the China seas, a fact which throws doubt on that view. [Other suggestions are that it is Chinese low-chuen, a sort of fighting ship, or Port. lancha, our launch (2 N. & Q. iii. 217, 236) .] ”

“ Shashma?) ... who is King of the westermost islands of Japan ... has conquered the Leques Islands, which not long since were under the Government of China."—Sainsbury, i. 447.
⁠"⁠ "The King of Shashma ... a man of greate power, and hath conquered the islandes called the Leques, which not long since were under the government of China. Leque Grande yeeldeth greate store of amber greece of the best sorte, and will vent 1,000 or 15,000 (sic) ps. of coarse cloth, as dutties and such like, per annum."—Letter of Raphe Coppindall, in Cocks, ii. ”

“ Soc. iii. 338.
1868.—"The Labbeis are a curious caste, said by some to be the descendants of Hindus forcibly converted to the Mahometan faith some centuries ago. It seems most probable, however, that they are of mixed blood. They are, comparatively, a fine strong active race, and generally contrive to keep themselves in easy circumstances. Many of them live by traffic. Many are smiths, and do excellent work as such. Others are fishermen, boatmen and the like...."—Nelson, Madura Manual, Pt. ”