1757.—"To get two bolias (see BOLIAH), a goordore, and 87 dandies (q.v.) from the Nazir."—Ives, 157.
GOSAIN, GOSSYNE, &c. s. H. and Mahr. Gosāīn, Gosāī, Gosāvī, Gusā'īn, &c., from Skt. Goswāmī, 'Lord of Passions' (lit. 'Lord of cows'), i.e. one who is supposed to have subdued his passions and renounced the world. Applied in various parts of India to different kinds of persons not necessarily celibates, but professing a life of religious mendicancy, and including some who dwell together in convents under a superior, and others who engage in trade and hardly pretend to lead a religious life.
1774.—"My hopes of seeing Teshu Lama were chiefly founded on the Gosain."—Bogle, in Markham's Tibet, 46.
c. 1781.—"It was at this time in the hands of a Gosine, or Hindoo Religious."—Hodges, 112. (The use of this barbarism by Hodges is remarkable, common as it has become of late years.)
[1813.—"Unlike the generality of Hindoos, these Gosaings do not burn their dead...."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. i. 312-3; in i. 544 he writes Gosannee.]
1826.—"I found a lonely cottage with a light in the window, and being attired in the habit of a gossein, I did not hesitate to request a lodging for the night."—Pandurang Hari, 399; [ed. 1873, ii. 275].
GOSBECK, COSBEAGUE, s. A coin spoken of in Persia (at Gombroon and elsewhere). From the quotation from Fryer it appears that there was a Goss and a Gosbegi, corresponding to Herbert's double and single Cozbeg. Mr. Wollaston in his English-Persian Dict. App. p. 436, among "Moneys now current in Persia," gives "5 dínár = 1 ghāz; also a nominal money." The ghāz, then, is the name of a coin (though a coin no longer), and ghāz-begī was that worth 10 dīnārs. Marsden mentions a copper coin, called kazbegi = 50 (nominal) dīnārs, or about 3½d. (Numism. Orient., 456.) But the value in dīnārs seems to be in error. [Prof. Browne, who referred the matter to M. Husayn Kuli Khān, Secretary of the Persian Embassy in London, writes: "This gentleman states that he knows no word ghāzī-beg, or g̣āzī-beg, but that there was formerly a coin called ghāz, of which 5 went to the shāhī; but this is no longer used or spoken of." The ghāz was in use at any rate as late as the time of Hajji Baba; see below.]
[1615.—"The chiefest money that is current in Persia is the Abase, which weigheth 2 metzicales. The second is the mamede, which is half an abesse. The third is the shahey and is a quarter of an abbesse. In the rial of eight are 13 shayes. In the cheken of Venetia 20 shayes. In a shaye are 2½ bisties or casbeges 10. One bistey is 4 casbeges or 2 tanges. The Abasse, momede and Shahey and bistey are of silver; the rest are of copper like to the pissas of India."—Foster, Letters, iii. 176.]
c. 1630.—"The Abbasee is in our money sixteene pence; Larree ten pence; Mamoodee eight pence; Bistee two pence; double Cozbeg one penny; single Cozbeg one half-penny; Fluces are ten to a Cozbeg."—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1638, p. 231.
1673.—"A Banyan that seemingly is not worth a Gosbeck (the lowest coin they have)."—Fryer, 113. See also p. 343.
" "10 cosbeagues is 1 Shahee; 4 Shahees is one Abassee or 16d."—Ibid. 211.
"
"Brass money with characters,
Are a Goss, ten whereof compose a Shahee,
A Gosbeege, five of which go to a Shahee."
Ibid. 407.
1711.—"10 Coz, or Pice, a Copper Coin, are 1 Shahee."—Lockyer, 241.
1727.—"1 Shahee is ... 10 Gaaz or Cosbegs."—A. Hamilton, ii. 311; [ed. 1744].
1752.—"10 cozbaugues or Pice (a Copper Coin) are 1 Shatree" (read Shahee).—Brooks, p. 37. See also in Hanway, vol. i. p. 292, Kazbegie; [in ii. 21, Kazbekie].
[1824.—"But whatever profit arose either from these services, or from the spoils of my monkey, he alone was the gainer, for I never touched a ghauz of it."—Hajji Baba, 52 seq.]
1825.—"A toman contains 100 mamoodies; a new abassee, 2 mamoodies or 4 shakees ... a shakee, 10 coz or cozbaugues, a small copper coin."—Milburn, 2nd ed. p. 95.
GOSHA, adj. Used in some parts, as an Anglo-Indian technicality, to indicate that a woman was secluded, and cannot appear in public. It is short for P. gosha-nishīn, 'sitting in a corner'; and is much the same as parda-nishīn (see PURDAH).
GOUNG, s. Burm. gaung; a village head man. ["Under the Thoogyee were Rwa-goung, or heads of villages, who aided in the collection of the revenue and were to some extent police officials." (Gazetteer of Burma, i. 480.)]
a. GOUR, s. H. gāur, gāuri gāē, (but not in the dictionaries), [Platts gives gaur, Skt. gaura, 'white, yellowish, reddish, pale red']. The great wild ox, Gavaeus Gaurus, Jerd.; [Bos gaurus, Blanford (Mammalia), 484 seq.], the same as the Bison (q.v.). [The classical account of the animal will be found in Forsyth, Highlands of Central India, ed. 1889, pp. 109 seqq.]
1806.—"They erect strong fences, but the buffaloes generally break them down.... They are far larger than common buffaloes. There is an account of a similar kind called the Gore; one distinction between it and the buffalo is the length of the hoof."—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 156.
b. GOUR, s. Properly Can. gauḍ, gauṛ, gauḍa. The head man of a village in the Canarese-speaking country; either as corresponding to patel, or to the Zemindar of Bengal. [See F. Buchanan, Mysore, i. 268; Rice, Mysore, i. 579.]
c. 1800.—"Every Tehsildary is farmed out in villages to the Gours or head-men."—In Munro's Life, iii. 92.
c. GOUR, n.p. Gauṛ, the name of a medieval capital of Bengal, which lay immediately south of the modern civil station of Malda, and the traces of which, with occasional Mahommedan buildings, extend over an immense area, chiefly covered with jungle. The name is a form of the ancient Gauḍa, meaning, it is believed, 'the country of sugar,' a name applied to a large part of Bengal, and specifically to the portion where those remains lie. It was the residence of a Hindu dynasty, the Senas, at the time of the early Mahommedan invasions, and was popularly known as Lakhnāotī; but the reigning king had transferred his seat to Nadiya (70 m. above Calcutta) before the actual conquest of Bengal in the last years of the 12th century. Gaur was afterwards the residence of several Mussulman dynasties. [See Ravenshaw, Gaur, its Ruins and Inscriptions, 1878.]
1536.—"But Xercansor [Shīr Khān Sūr, afterwards King of Hindustan as Shīr Shāh] after his success advanced along the river till he came before the city of Gouro to besiege it, and ordered a lodgment to be made in front of certain verandahs of the King's Palace which looked upon the river; and as he was making his trenches certain Rumis who were resident in the city, desiring that the King should prize them highly (d'elles fizesse cabedal) as he did the Portuguese, offered their service to the King to go and prevent the enemy's lodgment, saying that he should also send the Portuguese with them."—Correa, iii. 720.
[1552.—"Caor." See under BURRAMPOOTER.]
1553.—"The chief city of the Kingdom (of Bengala) is called Gouro. It is situated on the banks of the Ganges, and is said to be 3 of our leagues in length, and to contain 200,000 inhabitants. On the one side it has the river for its defence, and on the landward faces a wall of great height ... the streets are so thronged with the concourse and traffic of people ... that they cannot force their way past ... a great part of the houses of this city are stately and well-wrought buildings."—Barros, IV. ix. cap. 1.
1586.—"From Patanaw I went to Tanda which is in the land of the Gouren. It hath in times past been a kingdom, but is now subdued by Zelabdin Echebar ..."—R. Fitch, in Hakluyt, ii. 389.
1683.—"I went to see ye famous Ruins of a great Citty and Pallace called [of] GOWRE ... we spent 3½ hours in seeing ye ruines especially of the Pallace which has been ... in my judgment considerably bigger and more beautifull than the Grand Seignor's Seraglio at Constantinople or any other Pallace that I have seen in Europe."—Hedges, Diary, May 16; [Hak. Soc. i. 88].
GOVERNOR'S STRAITS, n.p. This was the name applied by the Portuguese (Estreito do Gobernador) to the Straits of Singapore, i.e. the straits south of that island (or New Strait). The reason of the name is given in our first quotation. The Governor in question was the Spaniard Dom João da Silva.
1615.—"The Governor sailed from Manilha in March of this year with 10 galleons and 2 galleys.... Arriving at the Straits of Sincapur, * * * * and passing by a new strait which since has taken the name of Estreito do Governador, there his galleon grounded on the reef at the point of the strait, and was a little grazed by the top of it."—Bocarro, 428.
1727.—"Between the small Carimon and Tanjong-bellong on the Continent, is the entrance of the Streights of Sincapure before mentioned, and also into the Streights of Governadore, the largest and easiest Passage into the China Seas."—A. Hamilton, ii. 122.
1780.—"Directions for sailing from Malacca to Pulo Timoan through Governor's Straits, commonly called the Straits of Sincapour."—Dunn's N. Directory, 5th ed. p. 474. See also Lettres Edif., 1st ed. ii. 118.
1841.—"Singapore Strait, called Governor Strait, or New Strait, by the French and Portuguese."—Horsburgh, 5th ed. ii. 264.
GOW, GAOU, s. Dak. H. gau. An ancient measure of distance preserved in S. India and Ceylon. In the latter island, where the term still is in use, the gawwa is a measure of about 4 English miles. It is Pali gāvuta, one quarter of a yojana, and that again is the Skt. gavyūti with the same meaning. There is in Molesworth's Mahr. Dictionary, and in Wilson, a term gaukos (see COSS), 'a land measure' (for which read 'distance measure'), the distance at which the lowing of a cow may be heard. This is doubtless a form of the same term as that under consideration, but the explanation is probably modern and incorrect. The yojana with which the gau is correlated, appears etymologically to be 'a yoking,' viz. "the stage, or distance to be gone in one harnessing without unyoking" (Williams); and the lengths attributed to it are very various, oscillating from 2½ to 9 miles, and even to 8 krośas (see COSS). The last valuation of the yojana would correspond with that of the gau at ¼.
c. 545.—"The great Island (Taprobane), according to what the natives say, has a length of 300 gaudia, and a breadth of the same, i.e. 900 miles."—Cosmas Indicopleustes, (in Cathay, clxxvii.).
1623.—"From Garicota to Tumbre may be about a league and a half, for in that country distances are measured by gaù, and each gaù is about two leagues, and from Garicòta to Tumbre they said was not so much as a gaù of road."—P. della Valle, ii. 638; [Hak. Soc. ii. 230].
1676.—"They measure the distances of places in India by Gos and Costes. A Gos is about 4 of our common leagues, and a Coste is one league."—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 30; [ed. Ball, i. 47].
1860.—"A gaou in Ceylon expresses a somewhat indeterminate length, according to the nature of the ground to be traversed, a gaou across a mountainous country being less than one measured on level ground, and a gaou for a loaded cooley is also permitted to be shorter than for one unburthened, but on the whole the average may be taken under four miles."—Tennent's Ceylon, 4th ed. i. 467.
GRAB, s. This name, now almost obsolete, was applied to a kind of vessel which is constantly mentioned in the sea- and river-fights of India, from the arrival of the Portuguese down to near the end of the 18th century. That kind of etymology which works from inner consciousness would probably say: "This term has always been a puzzle to the English in India. The fact is that it was a kind of vessel much used by corsairs, who were said to grab all that passed the sea. Hence," &c. But the real derivation is different.
The Rev. Howard Malcom, in a glossary attached to his Travels, defines it as "a square-rigged Arab vessel, having a projecting stern (stem?) and no bowsprit; it has two masts." Probably the application of the term may have deviated variously in recent days. [See Bombay Gazetteer, xiii. pt. i. 348.] For thus again in Solvyns (Les Hindous, vol. i.) a grab is drawn and described as a ship with three masts, a sharp prow, and a bowsprit. But originally the word seems, beyond question, to have been an Arab name for a galley. The proper word is Arab. ghorāb, 'a raven,' though adopted into Mahratti and Konkani as gurāb. Jal says, quoting Reinaud, that ghorāb was the name given by the Moors to the true galley, and cites Hyde for the rationale of the name. We give Hyde's words below. Amari, in a work quoted below (p. 397), points out the analogous corvetta as perhaps a transfer of ghurāb:
1181.—"A vessel of our merchants ... making sail for the city of Tripoli (which God protect) was driven by the winds on the shore of that country, and the crew being in want of water, landed to procure it, but the people of the place refused it unless some corn were sold to them. Meanwhile there came a ghurāb from Tripoli ... which took and plundered the crew, and seized all the goods on board the vessel."[140]—Arabic Letter from Ubaldo, Archbishop and other authorities of Pisa, to the Almohad Caliph Abu Yak'ub Yusuf, in Amari, Diplomi Arabi, p. 8.
The Latin contemporary version runs thus:
"Cum quidam nostri cari cives de Siciliâ cum carico frumenti ad Tripolim venirent, tempestate maris et vi ventorum compulsi, ad portum dictum Macri devenerunt; ibique aquâ deficiente, et cum pro eâ auriendâ irent, Barbarosi non permiserunt eos ... nisi prius eis de frumento venderent. Cumque inviti eis de frumento venderent galea vestra de Tripoli armata," &c.—Ibid. p. 269.
c. 1200.—Ghurāb, Cornix, Corvus, galea.
* * * * *
Galea, Ghurāb, Gharbān.—Vocabulista Arabico (from Riccardian Library), pubd. Florence, 1871, pp. 148, 404.
1343.—"Jalansi ... sent us off in company with his son, on board a vessel called al-'Ukairi, which is like a ghorāb, only more roomy. It has 60 oars, and when it engages is covered with a roof to protect the rowers from the darts and stone-shot."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 59.
1505.—In the Vocabulary of Pedro de Alcala, galera is interpreted in Arabic as gorâb.
1554.—In the narrative of Sidi 'Ali Kapudān, in describing an action that he fought with the Portuguese near the Persian Gulf, he says the enemy's fleet consisted of 4 barques as big as carracks (q.v.), 3 great ghurābs, 6 Karāwals (see CARAVEL) and 12 smaller ghurābs, or galliots (see GALLEVAT) with oars.—In J. As., ser. 1. tom. ix. 67-68.
[c. 1610.—"His royal galley called by them Ogate Gourabe (gourabe means 'galley,' and ogate 'royal')."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 312.]
1660.—"Jani Beg might attack us from the hills, the ghrábs from the river, and the men of Sihwān from the rear, so that we should be in a critical position."—Mohammed M'asum, in Elliot, i. 250. The word occurs in many pages of the same history.
[1679.—"My Selfe and Mr. Gapes Grob the stern most."—In Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. clxxxiv.]
1690.—"Galera ... ab Arabibus tam Asiaticis quam Africanis vocatur ... Ghorâb, i.e. Corvus, quasi piceâ nigredine, rostro extenso, et velis remisque sicut alis volans galera: unde et Vlacho Graece dicitur Μέλαινα."—Hyde, Note on Peritsol, in Synt. Dissertt. i. 97.
1673.—"Our Factors, having concerns in the cargo of the ships in this Road, loaded two Grobs and departed."—Fryer, 153.
1727.—"The Muskat War ... obliges them (the Portuguese) to keep an Armada of five or six Ships, besides small Frigates and Grabs of War."—A. Hamilton, i. 250; [ed. 1744, ii. 253].
1750-52.—"The ships which they make use of against their enemies are called goerabbs by the Dutch, and grabbs by the English, have 2 or 3 masts, and are built like our ships, with the same sort of rigging, only their prows are low and sharp as in gallies, that they may not only place some cannons in them, but likewise in case of emergency for a couple of oars, to push the grabb on in a calm."—Olof Toreen, Voyage, 205.
c. 1754.—"Our E. I. Company had here (Bombay) one ship of 40 guns, one of 20, one Grab of 18 guns, and several other vessels."—Ives, 43. Ives explains "Ketches, which they call grabs." This shows the meaning already changed, as no galley could carry 18 guns.
c. 1760.—"When the Derby, Captain Ansell, was so scandalously taken by a few of Angria's grabs."—Grose, i. 81.
1763.—"The grabs have rarely more than two masts, though some have three; those of three are about 300 tons burthen; but the others are not more than 150: they are built to draw very little water, being very broad in proportion to their length, narrowing, however, from the middle to the end, where instead of bows they have a prow, projecting like that of a Mediterranean galley."—Orme (reprint), i. 408-9.
1810.—"Here a fine English East Indiaman, there a grab, or a dow from Arabia."—Maria Graham, 142.
" "This Glab (sic) belongs to an Arab merchant of Muscat. The Nakhodah, an Abyssinian slave."—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 232.
[1820.—"We had scarce set sail when there came in a ghorab (a kind of boat) the Cotwal of Surat ..."—Trans. Lit. Soc. Bo. ii. 5.]
1872.—"Moored in its centre you saw some 20 or 30 ghurábs (grabs) from Maskat, Baghlahs from the Persian Gulf, Kotiyahs from Kach'h, and Pattimars or Batelas from the Konkan and Bombay."—Burton, Sind Revisited, i. 83.
GRAM, s. This word is properly the Portuguese grão, i.e. 'grain,' but it has been specially appropriated to that kind of vetch (Cicer arietinum, L.) which is the most general grain- (rather pulse-) food of horses all over India, called in H. chanā. It is the Ital. cece, Fr. pois chiche, Eng. chick-pea or Egypt. pea, much used in France and S. Europe. This specific application of grão is also Portuguese, as appears from Bluteau. The word gram is in some parts of India applied to other kinds of pulse, and then this application of it is recognised by qualifying it as Bengal gram. (See remarks under CALAVANCE.) The plant exudes oxalate of potash, and to walk through a gram-field in a wet morning is destructive to shoe-leather. The natives collect the acid.
[1513.—"And for the food of these horses (exported from the Persian Gulf) the factor supplied grãos."—Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 200, Letter of Dec. 4.
[1554.—(Describing Vijayanagar.) "There the food of horses and elephants consists of grãos, rice and other vegetables, cooked with jagra, which is palm-tree sugar, as there is no barley in that country."—Castanheda, Bk. ii. ch. 16.
[c. 1610.—"They give them also a certain grain like lentils."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 79.]
1702.—"... he confessing before us that their allowance three times a week is but a quart of rice and gram together for five men a day, but promises that for the future it shall be rectified."—In Wheeler, ii. 10.
1776.—"... Lentils, gram ... mustard seed."—Halhed's Code, p. 8 (pt. ii.).
1789.—"... Gram, a small kind of pulse, universally used instead of oats."—Munro's Narrative, 85.
1793.—"... gram, which it is not customary to give to bullocks in the Carnatic."—Dirom's Narrative, 97.
1804.—"The gram alone, for the four regiments with me, has in some months cost 50,000 pagodas."—Wellington, iii. 71.
1865.—"But they had come at a wrong season, gram was dear, and prices low, and the sale concluded in a dead loss."—Palgrave's Arabia, 290.
GRAM-FED, adj. Properly the distinctive description of mutton and beef fattened upon gram, which used to be the pride of Bengal. But applied figuratively to any 'pampered creature.'
c. 1849.—"By an old Indian I mean a man full of curry and of bad Hindustani, with a fat liver and no brains, but with a self-sufficient idea that no one can know India except through long experience of brandy, champagne, gram-fed mutton, cheroots and hookahs."—Sir C. Napier, quoted in Bos. Smith's Life of Ld. Lawrence, i. 338.
1880.—"I missed two persons at the Delhi assemblage in 1877. All the gram-fed secretaries and most of the alcoholic chiefs were there; but the famine-haunted villagers and the delirium-shattered opium-eating Chinaman, who had to pay the bill, were not present."—Ali Baba, 127.
GRANDONIC. (See GRUNTHUM and SANSKRIT).
GRASS-CLOTH, s. This name is now generally applied to a kind of cambric from China made from the Chuma of the Chinese (Boehmaria nivea, Hooker, the Rhea, so much talked of now), and called by the Chinese sia-pu, or 'summer-cloth.' We find grass-cloths often spoken of by the 16th century travellers, and even later, as an export from Orissa and Bengal. They were probably made of Rhea or some kindred species, but we have not been able to determine this. Cloth and nets are made in the south from the Neilgherry nettle (Girardinia heterophylla, D. C.)
c. 1567.—"Cloth of herbes (panni d'erba), which is a kinde of silke, which groweth among the woodes without any labour of man."—Caesar Frederike, in Hakl. ii. 358.
1585.—"Great store of the cloth which is made from Grasse, which they call yerua" (in Orissa).—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 387.
[1598.—See under SAREE.
[c. 1610.—"Likewise is there plenty of silk, as well that of the silkworm as of the (silk) herb, which is of the brightest yellow colour, and brighter than silk itself."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 328.]
1627.—"Their manufactories (about Balasore) are of Cotton ... Silk, and Silk and Cotton Romals ...; and of Herba (a Sort of tough Grass) they make Ginghams, Pinascos, and several other Goods for Exportation."—A. Hamilton, i. 397; [ed. 1744].
1813.—Milburn, in his List of Bengal Piece-Goods, has Herba Taffaties (ii. 221).
GRASS-CUTTER, s. This is probably a corruption representing the H. ghāskhodā or ghāskāṭā, 'the digger, or cutter, of grass'; the title of a servant employed to collect grass for horses, one such being usually attached to each horse besides the syce or horse-keeper. In the north the grasscutter is a man; in the south the office is filled by the horsekeeper's wife. Ghāskaṭ is the form commonly used by Englishmen in Upper India speaking Hindustani; but ghasiyārā by those aspiring to purer language. The former term appears in Williamson's V. M. (1810) as gauskot (i. 186), the latter in Jacquemont's Correspondence as grassyara. No grasscutters are mentioned as attached to the stables of Akbar; only a money allowance for grass. The antiquity of the Madras arrangement is shown by a passage in Castanheda (1552): "... he gave him a horse, and a boy to attend to it, and a female slave to see to its fodder."—(ii. 58.)
1789.—"... an Horsekeeper and Grasscutter at two pagodas."—Munro's Narr. 28.
1793.—"Every horse ... has two attendants, one who cleans and takes care of him, called the horse-keeper, and the other the grasscutter, who provides for his forage."—Dirom's Narr. 242.
1846.—"Every horse has a man and a maid to himself—the maid cuts grass for him; and every dog has a boy. I inquired whether the cat had any servants, but I found he was allowed to wait upon himself."—Letters from Madras, 37.
[1850.—"Then there are our servants ... four Saises and four Ghascuts ..."—Mrs. Mackenzie, Life in the Mission, ii. 253.]
1875.—"I suppose if you were to pick up ... a grasscutter's pony to replace the one you lost, you wouldn't feel that you had done the rest of the army out of their rights."—The Dilemma, ch. xxxvii.
[GRASSHOPPER FALLS, n.p. An Anglo-Indian corruption of the name of the great waterfall on the Sheravati River in the Shimoga District of Mysore, where the river plunges down in a succession of cascades, of which the principal is 890 feet in height. The proper name of the place is Gersoppa, or Gerusappe, which takes its name from the adjoining village; geru, Can., 'the marking nut plant' (semecarpus anacardium, L.), soppu, 'a leaf.' See Mr. Grey's note on P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 218.]
GRASS-WIDOW, s. This slang phrase is applied in India, with a shade of malignity, to ladies living apart from their husbands, especially as recreating at the Hill stations, whilst the husbands are at their duties in the plains.
We do not know the origin of the phrase. In the Slang Dictionary it is explained: "An unmarried mother; a deserted mistress." But no such opprobrious meanings attach to the Indian use. In Notes and Queries, 6th ser. viii. 414, will be found several communications on this phrase. [Also see ibid. x. 436, 526; xi. 178; 8th ser. iv. 37, 75.] We learn from these that in Moor's Suffolk Words and Phrases, Grace-Widow occurs with the meaning of an unmarried mother. Corresponding to this, it is stated also, is the N.S. (?) or Low German gras-wedewe. The Swedish Gräsänka or -enka also is used for 'a low dissolute married woman living by herself.' In Belgium a woman of this description is called haecke-wedewe, from haecken, 'to feel strong desire' (to 'hanker'). And so it is suggested gräsenka is contracted from grädesenka, from gradig, 'esuriens' (greedy, in fact). In Danish Dict. graesenka is interpreted as a woman whose betrothed lover is dead. But the German Stroh-Wittwe, 'straw-widow' (which Flügel interprets as 'mock widow'), seems rather inconsistent with the suggestion that grass-widow is a corruption of the kind suggested. A friend mentions that the masc. Stroh-Wittwer is used in Germany for a man whose wife is absent, and who therefore dines at the eating-house with the young fellows. [The N.E.D. gives the two meanings: 1. An unmarried woman who has cohabited with one or more men; a discarded mistress; 2. A married woman whose husband is absent from her. "The etymological notion is obscure, but the parallel forms disprove the notion that the word is a 'corruption' of grace-widow. It has been suggested that in sense 1. grass (and G. stroh) may have been used with opposition to bed. Sense 2. may have arisen as an etymologizing interpretation of the compound after it had ceased to be generally understood; in Eng. it seems to have first appeared as Anglo-Indian." The French equivalent, Veuve de Malabar, was in allusion to Lemierre's tragedy, produced in 1770.]
1878.—"In the evening my wife and I went out house-hunting; and we pitched upon one which the newly incorporated body of Municipal Commissioners and the Clergyman (who was a Grass-widower, his wife being at home) had taken between them."—Life in the Mofussil, ii. 99-100.
1879.—The Indian newspaper's "typical official rises to a late breakfast—probably on herrings and soda-water—and dresses tastefully for his round of morning calls, the last on a grass-widow, with whom he has a tête-à-tête tiffin, where 'pegs' alternate with champagne."—Simla Letter in Times, Aug. 16.
1880.—"The Grass-widow in Nephelococcygia."—Sir Ali Baba, 169.
" "Pleasant times have these Indian grass-widows!"—The World, Jan. 21, 13.
GRASSIA, s. Grās (said to mean 'a mouthful') is stated by Mr. Forbes in the Rās Mālā (p. 186) to have been in old times usually applied to alienations for religious objects; but its prevalent sense came to be the portion of land given for subsistence to cadets of chieftains' families. Afterwards the term grās was also used for the blackmail paid by a village to a turbulent neighbour as the price of his protection and forbearance, and in other like meanings. "Thus the title of grassia, originally an honourable one, and indicating its possessor to be a cadet of the ruling tribe, became at last as frequently a term of opprobrium, conveying the idea of a professional robber" (Ibid. Bk. iv. ch. 3); [ed. 1878, p. 568].
[1584.—See under COOLY.]
c. 1665.—"Nous nous trouvâmes au Village de Bilpar, dont les Habitans qu'on nomme Gratiates, sont presque tous Voleurs."—Thevenot, v. 42.
1808.—"The Grasias have been shewn to be of different Sects, Casts, or families, viz., 1st, Colees and their Collaterals; 2nd, Rajpoots; 3rd, Syed Mussulmans; 4th, Mole-Islams or modern Mahomedans. There are besides many others who enjoy the free usufruct of lands, and permanent emolument from villages, but those only who are of the four aforesaid warlike tribes seem entitled by prescriptive custom ... to be called Grassias."—Drummond, Illustrations.
1813.—"I confess I cannot now contemplate my extraordinary deliverance from the Gracia machinations without feelings more appropriate to solemn silence, than expression."—Forbes, Or. Mem. iii. 393; [conf. 2nd ed. ii. 357].
1819.—"Grassia, from Grass, a word signifying 'a mouthful.' This word is understood in some parts of Mekran, Sind, and Kutch; but I believe not further into Hindostan than Jaypoor."—Mackmurdo, in Tr. Lit. Soc. Bo. i. 270. [On the use in Central India, see Tod, Annals, i. 175; Malcolm, Central India, i. 508.]
GRAVE-DIGGER. (See BEEJOO.)
GREEN-PIGEON. A variety of species belonging to the sub.-fam. Treroninae, and to genera Treron, Cricopus, Osmotreron, and Sphenocereus, bear this name. The three first following quotations show that these birds had attracted the attention of the ancients.
c. 180.—"Daimachus, in his History of India, says that pigeons of an apple-green colour are found in India."—Athenaeus, ix. 51.
c. A.D. 250.—"They bring also greenish (ὠχρὰς) pigeons which they say can never be tamed or domesticated."—Aelian, De Nat. Anim. xv. 14.
" "There are produced among the Indians ... pigeons of a pale green colour (χλωρόπτιλοι); any one seeing them for the first time, and not having any knowledge of ornithology, would say the bird was a parrot and not a pigeon. They have legs and bill in colour like the partridges of the Greeks."—Ibid. xvi. 2.
1673.—"Our usual diet was (besides Plenty of Fish) Water-Fowl, Peacocks, Green Pidgeons, Spotted Deer, Sabre, Wild Hogs, and sometimes Wild Cows."—Fryer, 176.
1825.—"I saw a great number of pea-fowl, and of the beautiful greenish pigeon common in this country...."—Heber, ii. 19.
GREY PARTRIDGE. The common Anglo-Indian name of the Hind. tītar, common over a great part of India, Ortygornis Ponticeriana, Gmelin. "Its call is a peculiar loud shrill cry, and has, not unaptly, been compared to the word Pateela-pateela-pateela, quickly repeated but preceded by a single note, uttered two or three times, each time with a higher intonation, till it gets, as it were, the key-note of its call."—Jerdon, ii. 566.
GRIBLEE, s. A graplin or grapnel. Lascars' language (Roebuck).
GRIFFIN, GRIFF, s.; GRIFFISH, adj. One newly arrived in India, and unaccustomed to Indian ways and peculiarities; a Johnny Newcome. The origin of the phrase is unknown to us. There was an Admiral Griffin who commanded in the Indian seas from Nov. 1746 to June 1748, and was not very fortunate. Had his name to do with the origin of the term? The word seems to have been first used at Madras (see Boyd, below). [But also see the quotation from Beaumont & Fletcher, below.] Three references below indicate the parallel terms formerly used by the Portuguese at Goa, by the Dutch in the Archipelago, and by the English in Ceylon.
[c. 1624.—"Doves beget doves, and eagles eagles, Madam: a citizen's heir, though never so rich, seldom at the best proves a gentleman."—Beaumont & Fletcher, Honest Man's Fortune, Act III. sc. 1, vol. iii. p. 389, ed. Dyce. Mr. B. Nicolson (3 ser. Notes and Queries, xi. 439) points out that Dyce's MS. copy, licensed by Sir Henry Herbert in 1624, reads "proves but a griffin gentleman." Prof. Skeat (ibid. xi. 504) quoting from Piers Plowman, ed. Wright, p. 96, "Gryffyn the Walshe," shows that Griffin was an early name for a Welshman, apparently a corruption of Griffith. The word may have been used abroad to designate a raw Welshman, and thus acquired its present sense.]
1794.—"As I am little better than an unfledged Griffin, according to the fashionable phrase here" (Madras).—Hugh Boyd, 177.
1807.—"It seems really strange to a griffin—the cant word for a European just arrived."—Ld. Minto, in India, 17.
1808.—"At the Inn I was tormented to death by the impertinent persevering of the black people; for every one is a beggar, as long as you are reckoned a griffin, or a new-comer."—Life of Leyden, 107.
1836.—"I often tire myself ... rather than wait for their dawdling; but Mrs. Staunton laughs at me and calls me a 'Griffin,' and says I must learn to have patience and save my strength."—Letters from Madras, 38.
" "... he was living with bad men, and saw that they thought him no better than themselves, but only more griffish...."—Ibid. 53.
1853.—"There were three more cadets on the same steamer, going up to that great griff depot, Oudapoor."—Oakfield, i. 38.
1853.—
"'Like drill?'
"'I don't dislike it much now: the goose-step was not lively.'
"'Ah, they don't give griffs half enough of it now-a-days; by Jove, Sir, when I was a griff'—and thereupon ..."—Ibid. i. 62.
[1900.—"Ten Rangoon sportsmen have joined to import ponies from Australia on the griffin system, and have submitted a proposal to the Stewards to frame their events to be confined to griffins at the forthcoming autumn meeting."—Pioneer Mail, May 18.]
The griffin at Goa also in the old days was called by a peculiar name. (See REINOL.)
1631.—"Haec exanthemata (prickly heat-spots) magis afficiunt recenter advenientes ut et Mosquitarum puncturae ... ita ut deridiculum ergo hic inter nostrates dicterium enatum sit, eum qui hoc modo affectus sit, esse Orang Barou, quod novitium hominem significat."—Jac. Bontii, Hist. Nat., &c., ii. cap. xviii. p. 33.
Here orang barou is Malay orang-baharu, i.e. 'new man'; whilst Orang-lama, 'man of long since,' is applied to old colonials. In connection with these terms we extract the following:—
c. 1790.—"Si je n'avois pas été un oorlam, et si un long séjour dans l'Inde ne m'avoit pas accoutumé à cette espèce de fleau, j'aurois certainement souffert l'impossible durant cette nuit."—Haafner, ii. 26-27.
On this his editor notes:
"Oorlam est un mot Malais corrumpu; il faut dire Orang-lama, ce qui signifie une personne qui a déjà été long-temps dans un endroit, ou dans un pays, et c'est par ce nom qu'on designe les Européens qui ont habité depuis un certain temps dans l'Inde. Ceux qui ne font qu'y arriver, sont appelés Baar; denomination qui vient du mot Malais Orang-Baru ... un homme nouvellement arrivé."
[1894.—"In the Standard, Jan. 1, there appears a letter entitled 'Ceylon Tea-Planting—a Warning,' and signed 'An Ex-creeper.' The correspondent sends a cutting from a recent issue of a Ceylon daily paper—a paragraph headed 'Creepers Galore.' From this extract it appears that Creeper is the name given in Ceylon to paying pupils who go out there to learn tea-planting."—Mr. A. L. Mayhew, in 8 ser. Notes and Queries, v. 124.]
GROUND, s. A measure of land used in the neighbourhood of Madras. [Also called Munny, Tam. manai.] (See under CAWNY.)
GRUFF, adj. Applied to bulky goods. Probably the Dutch grof, 'coarse.'
[1682-3.—"... that for every Tunne of Saltpetre and all other Groffe goods I am to receive nineteen pounds."—Pringle, Diary, Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. vol. ii. 3-4.]
1750.—"... all which could be called Curtins, and some of the Bastions at Madrass, had Warehouses under them for the Reception of Naval Stores, and other gruff Goods from Europe, as well as Salt Petre from Bengal."—Letter to a Propr. of the E. I. Co., p. 52.
1759.—"Which by causing a great export of rice enhances the price of labour, and consequently of all other gruff, piece-goods and raw silk."—In Long, 171.
1765.—"... also foole sugar, lump jaggre, ginger, long pepper, and piply-mol ... articles that usually compose the gruff cargoes of our outward-bound shipping."—Holwell, Hist. Events, &c., i. 194.
1783.—"What in India is called a gruff (bulky) cargo."—Forrest, Voyage to Mergui, 42.
GRUNTH, s. Panjābī Granth, from Skt. grantha, lit. 'a knot,' leaves tied together by a string. 'The Book,' i.e. the Scripture of the Sikhs, containing the hymns composed or compiled by their leaders from Nānak (1469-1539) onwards. The Granth has been translated by Dr. Trumpp, and published, at the expense of the Indian Government.