1807.—"Many persons are in the habit of sitting down to a repast at one o'clock, which is called tiffen, and is in fact an early dinner."—Cordiner's Ceylon, i. 83.
1810.—"The (Mahommedan) ladies, like ours, indulge in tiffings (slight repasts), it being delicate to eat but little before company."—Williamson, V.M. i. 352.
" (published 1812) "The dinner is scarcely touched, as every person eats a hearty meal called tiffin, at 2 o'clock, at home."—Maria Graham, 29.
1811.—"Gertrude was a little unfortunate in her situation, which was next below Mrs. Fashionist, and who ... detailed the delights of India, and the routine of its day; the changing linen, the curry-combing ... the idleness, the dissipation, the sleeping and the necessity of sleep, the gay tiffings, were all delightful to her in reciting...."—The Countess and Gertrude, or Modes of Discipline, by Laetitia Maria Hawkins, ii. 12.
1824.—"The entreaty of my friends compelled me to remain to breakfast and an early tiffin...."—Seely, Wonders of Ellora, ch. iii.
c. 1832.—"Reader! I, as well as Pliny, had an uncle, an East Indian Uncle ... everybody has an Indian Uncle.... He is not always so orientally rich as he is reputed; but he is always orientally munificent. Call upon him at any hour from two till five, he insists on your taking tiffin; and such a tiffin! The English corresponding term is luncheon: but how meagre a shadow is the European meal to its glowing Asiatic cousin."—De Quincey, Casuistry of Roman Meals, in Works, iii. 259.
1847.—"'Come home and have some tiffin, Dobbin,' a voice cried behind him, as a pudgy hand was laid on his shoulder.... But the Captain had no heart to go a-feasting with Joe Sedley."—Vanity Fair, ed. 1867, i. 235.
1850.—"A vulgar man who enjoys a champagne tiffin and swindles his servants ... may be a pleasant companion to those who do not hold him in contempt as a vulgar knave, but he is not a gentleman."—Sir C. Napier, Farewell Address.
1853.—"This was the case for the prosecution. The court now adjourned for tiffin."—Oakfield, i. 319.
1882.—"The last and most vulgar form of 'nobbling' the press is well known as the luncheon or tiffin trick. It used to be confined to advertising tradesmen and hotel-keepers, and was practised on newspaper reporters. Now it has been practised on a loftier scale...."—Saty. Rev., March 25, 357.
TO TIFF, in the Indian sense.
1803.—"He hesitated, and we were interrupted by a summons to tiff at Floyer's. After tiffin Close said he should be glad to go."—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 116.
1814.—"We found a pool of excellent water, which is scarce on the hills, and laid down to tiff on a full soft bed, made by the grass of last year and this. After tiffing, I was cold and unwell."—Ibid. p. 283. Tiffing here is a participle, but its use shows how the noun tiffin would be originally formed.
1816.—
"The huntsman now informed them all
They were to tiff at Bobb'ry Hall.
Mounted again, the party starts,
Upsets the hackeries and carts,
Hammals (see HUMMAUL) and palanquins and doolies,
Dobies (see DHOBY) and burrawas (?) and coolies."
The Grand Master, or Adventures of Qui Hi,
by Quiz (Canto viii.).
[Burrawa is probably H. bhaṛuā, 'a pander.']
1829.—"I was tiffing with him one day, when the subject turned on the sagacity of elephants...."—John Shipp, ii. 267.
1859.—"Go home, Jack. I will tiff with you to-day at half-past two."—J. Lang, Wanderings in India, p. 16.
The following, which has just met our eye, is bad grammar, according to Anglo-Indian use:
1885.—"'Look here, Randolph, don't you know,' said Sir Peel, ... 'Here you've been gallivanting through India, riding on elephants, and tiffining with Rajahs....'"—Punch, Essence of Parliament, April 25, p. 204.
TIGER, s. The royal tiger was apparently first known to the Greeks by the expedition of Alexander, and a little later by a live one which Seleucus sent to Athens. The animal became, under the Emperors, well known to the Romans, but fell out of the knowledge of Europe in later days, till it again became familiar in India. The Greek and Latin τίγρις, tigris, is said to be from the old Persian word for an arrow, tigra, which gives the modern Pers. (and Hind.) tīr.[269] {921b}Pliny says of the River Tigris: "a celeritate Tigris incipit vocari. Ita appellant Medi sagittam" (vi. 27). In speaking of the animal and its "velocitatis tremendae," Pliny evidently glances at this etymology, real or imaginary. So does Pausanias probably, in his remarks on its colour. [This view of the origin of the name is accepted by Schrader (Prehist. Ant. of the Aryan Peoples, E.T. 250), who writes: "Nothing like so far back in the history of the Indo-Europeans does the lion's dreadful rival for supremacy over the beasts, the tiger, go. In India the songs of the Rigveda have nothing to say about him; his name (vyághrá) first occurs in the Atharvaveda, i.e. at a time when the Indian immigration must have extended much farther towards the Ganges; for it is in the reeds and grasses of Bengal that we have to look for the tiger's proper home. Nor is he mentioned among the beasts of prey in the Avesta. The district of Hyrcania, whose numerous tigers the later writers of antiquity speak of with especial frequency, was then called Vehrkana, 'wolf-land.' It is, therefore, not improbable ... that the tiger has spread in relatively late times from India over portions of W. and N. Asia."]
c. B.C. 325.—"The Indians think the Tiger (τὸν τίγριν) a great deal stronger than the elephant. Nearchus says he saw the skin of a tiger, but did not see the beast itself, and that the Indians assert the tiger to be as big as the biggest horse; whilst in swiftness and strength there is no creature to be compared to him. And when he engages the elephant he springs on its head, and easily throttles it. Moreover, the creatures which we have seen and call tigers are only jackals which are dappled, and of a kind bigger than ordinary jackals."—Arrian, Indica, xv. We apprehend that this big dappled jackal (θῶς) is meant for a hyaena.
c. B.C. 322.—"In the island of Tylos ... there is also another wonderful thing they say ... for there is a certain tree, from which they cut sticks, and these are very handsome articles, having a certain variegated colour, like the skin of a tiger. The wood is very heavy; but if it is struck against any solid substance it shivers like a piece of {922a}pottery."—Theophrastus, H. of Plants, Bk. v. c. 4.
c. B.C. 321.—"And Ulpianus ... said: 'Do we anywhere find the word used a masculine, τὸν τίγριν? for I know that Philemon says thus in his Neaera:
'A. We've seen the tigress (τὴν τίγριν) that Seleucus sent us;
Are we not bound to send Seleucus back
Some beast in fair exchange?'"
In Athenaeus, xiii. 57.
c. B.C. 320.—"According to Megasthenes, the largest tigers are found among the Prasii, almost twice the size of lions, and of such strength that a tame one led by four persons seized a mule by its hinder leg, overpowered it, and dragged it to him."—Strabo, xv. ch. 1, § 37 (Hamilton and Falconer's E.T. iii. 97).
c. B.C. 19.—"And Augustus came to Samos, and again passed the winter there ... and all sorts of embassies came to him; and the Indians who had previously sent messages proclaiming friendship, now sent to make a solemn treaty, with presents, and among other things including tigers, which were then seen for the first time by the Romans; and if I am not mistaken by the Greeks also."—Dio Cassius, liv. 9. [See Merivale, Hist. Romans, ed. 1865, iv. 176.]
c. B.C. 19.—
"... duris genuit te cautibus horrens
Caucasus, Hyrcanaeque admôrunt ubera tigres."
Aen. iv. 366-7.
c. A.D. 70.—"The Emperor Augustus ... in the yeere that Q. Tubero and Fabius Maximus were Consuls together ... was the first of all others that shewed a tame tygre within a cage: but the Emperour Claudius foure at once.... Tygres are bred in Hircania and India: this beast is most dreadful for incomparable swiftness."—Pliny, by Ph. Holland, i. 204.
c. 80-90.—"Wherefore the land is called Dachanabadēs (see DECCAN), for the South is called Dachanos in their tongue. And the land that lies in the interior above this towards the East embraces many tracts, some of them of deserts or of great mountains, with all kinds of wild beasts, panthers and tigers (τίγρεις) and elephants, and immense serpents (δράκοντας) and hyenas (κροκόττας) and cynocephala of many species, and many and populous nations till you come to the Ganges."—Periplus, § 50.
c. A.D. 180.—"That beast again, in the talk of Ctesias about the Indians, which is alleged to be called by them Martióra (Martichóra), and by the Greeks Androphagus (Man-eater), I am convinced is really the tiger (τὸν τίγριν). The story that he has a triple range of teeth in each jaw, and sharp prickles at the tip of his tail which he shoots at those who are at a distance, like the arrows of an archer,—I don't believe it to be true, but only to have been generated by the excessive fear which the beast inspires. They have been wrong also about his colour;—no doubt when they see him in the bright sunlight he takes that colour and looks red; {922b}or perhaps it may be because of his going so fast, and because even when not running he is constantly darting from side to side; and then (to be sure) it is always from a long way off that they see him."—Pausanias, IX. xxi. 4. [See Frazer's tr. i. 470; v. 86. Martichoras is here Pers. mardumkhwūr, 'eater of men.']
1298.—"Enchore sachiés qe le Grant Sire a bien leopars asez qe tuit sunt bon da chacer et da prendre bestes.... Il ha plosors lyons grandismes, greignors asez qe cele de Babilonie. Il sunt de mout biaus poil et de mout biaus coleor, car il sunt tout vergés por lonc, noir et vermoil et blance. Il sunt afaités a prandre sengler sauvajes et les bueff sauvajes, et orses et asnes sauvajes et cerf et cavriolz et autres bestes."—Marco Polo, Geog. Text, ch. xcii. Thus Marco Polo can only speak of this huge animal, striped black and red and white, as of a Lion. And a medieval Bestiary has a chapter on the Tigre which begins: "Une Beste est qui est apelée Tigre, c'est une maniere de serpent."—(In Cahier et Martin, Mélanges d' Archéol. ii. 140).
1474.—"This meane while there came in certein men sent from a Prince of India, wth certain strange beastes, the first whereof was a leonza ledde in a chayne by one that had skyll, which they call in their languaige Babureth.  Here again is an excellent description of a tiger, but that name seems unknown to the traveller. Babureth is in the Ital. original Baburth, Pers. babr, a tiger.
1553.—"... Beginning from the point of Çingapura and all the way to Pulloçambilam, i.e. the whole length of the Kingdom of Malaca ... there is no other town with a name except this City of Malaca, only some havens of fishermen, and in the interior a very few villages. And indeed the most of these wretched people sleep at the top of the highest trees they can find, for up to a height of 20 palms the tigers can seize them at a leap; and if anything saves the poor people from these beasts it is the bonfires they keep burning at night, which the tigers are much afraid of. In fact these are so numerous that many come into the city itself at night in search of prey. And it has happened, since we took the place, that a tiger leapt into a garden surrounded by a good high timber fence, and lifted a beam of wood with three slaves who were laid by the heels, and with these made a clean leap over the fence."—Barros, II. vi. 1. Lest I am doing the great historian wrong as to this Munchausen-like story, I give the original: "E jà aconteceo ... saltar hum tigre em hum quintal cercado de madeira bem alto, e levou hum tronco de madeira com trez (tres?) escravos que estavam prezos nelle, com os quaes saltou de claro em claro per cima da cerca."
1583.—"We also escaped the peril of the multitude of tigers which infest those tracts" (the Pegu delta) "and prey on whatever they can get at. And although we were on that account anchored in midstream, nevertheless it was asserted that the ferocity of these animals was such that they would press even into the water to seize their prey."—Gasparo Balbi, f. 94v.
1586.—"We went through the wildernesse because the right way was full of thieves, when we passed the country of Gouren, where we found but few Villages, but almost all Wildernesse, and saw many Buffes, Swine, and Deere, Grasse longer than a man, and very many Tigres."—R. Fitch, in Purchas, ii. 1736.
1675.—"Going in quest whereof, one of our Soldiers, a Youth, killed a Tigre-Royal; it was brought home by 30 or 40 Combies (Koonbee), the Body tied to a long Bamboo, the Tail extended ... it was a Tigre of the Biggest and Noblest Kind, Five Feet in Length beside the Tail, Three and a Half in Height, it was of a light Yellow, streaked with Black, like a Tabby Cat ... the Visage Fierce and Majestick, the Teeth gnashing...."—Fryer, 176.
1683.—"In ye afternoon they found a great Tiger, one of ye black men shot a barbed arrow into his Buttock. Mr. Frenchfeild and Capt. Raynes alighted off their horses and advanced towards the thicket where ye Tiger lay. The people making a great noise, ye Tiger flew out upon Mr. Frenchfeild, and he shot him with a brace of Bullets into ye breast: at which he made a great noise, and returned again to his den. The Black Men seeing of him wounded fell upon him, but the Tiger had so much strength as to kill 2 men, and wound a third, before he died. At Night ye Ragea sent me the Tiger."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 66-67.
1754.—"There was a Charter granted to the East India Company. Many Disputes arose about it, which came before Parliament; all Arts were used to corrupt or delude the Members; among others a Tyger was baited with Solemnity, on the Day the great Question was to come on. This was such a Novelty, that several of the Members were drawn off from their Attendance, and absent on the Division...."—A Collection of Letters relating to the E.I. Company, &c. (Tract), 1754, p. 13.
1869.—"Les tigres et les léopards sont considérés, autant par les Hindous que par les musalmans, comme étant la propriété des pirs (see PEER): aussi les naturels du pays ne sympathisent pas avec les Européens pour la chasse du tigre."—Garcin de Tassy, Rel. Mus. p. 24.
1872.—"One of the Frontier Battalion soldiers approached me, running for his life.... This was his story:—
'Sahib, I was going along with the letters ... which I had received from your highness ... a great tiger came out and stood in the path. Then I feared for my life; and {923b}the tiger stood, and I stood, and we looked at each other. I had no weapon but my kukri (Kookry) ... and the Government letters. So I said, 'My lord Tiger, here are the Government letters, the letters of the Honourable Kumpany Bahadur ... and it is necessary for me to go on with them.' The tiger never ceased looking at me, and when I had done speaking he growled, but he never offered to get out of the way. On this I was much more afraid, so I kneeled down and made obeisance to him; but he did not take any more notice of that either, so at last I told him I should report the matter to the Sahib, and I threw down the letters in front of him, and came here as fast as I was able. Sahib, I now ask for your justice against that tiger.'"—Lt.-Col. T. Lewin, A Fly on the Wheel, p. 444.
TINCALL, s. Borax. Pers. tinkār, but apparently originally Skt. ṭaṇkaṇa, and perhaps from the people so called who may have supplied it, in the Himālaya—Τάγγανοι of Ptolemy. [Mr. Atkinson (Himalayan Gazz. ii. 357) connects the name of this people with that of the tangun pony.]
1525.—"Tymquall, small, 60 tangas a maund."—Lembrança, 50.
1563.—"It is called borax and crisocola; and in Arabic tincar, and so the Guzeratis call it...."—Garcia, f. 78.
c. 1590.—"Having reduced the k'haral to small bits, he adds to every man of it 1½ sers of tangár (borax) and 3 sers of pounded natrum, and kneads them together."—Āīn, i. 26.
[1757.—"A small quantity of Tutenegg (Tootnague), Tinkal and Japan Copper was also found here...."—Ives, 105.]
TINDAL, s. Malayāl. taṇḍal, Telug. taṇḍelu, also in Mahr. and other vernaculars ṭaṇḍel, ṭaṇḍail, [which Platts connects with ṭānḍā, Skt. tantra, 'a line of men,' but the Madras Gloss. derives the S. Indian forms from Mal. tandu, 'an oar,' valli, 'to pull.'] The head or commander of a body of men; but in ordinary specific application a native petty officer of lascars, whether on board ship (boatswain) or in the ordnance department, and sometimes the head of a gang of labourers on public works.
c. 1348.—"The second day after our arrival at the port of Kailukari this princess invited the nākhodah (Nacoda) or owner of the ship, the karāni (see CRANNY) or clerk, the merchants, the persons of distinction, the tandīl...."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 250. The Moorish traveller explains the word as muḳaddam (Mocuddum, q.v.) al-rajāl, which the French translators render as "général des {924a}piétons," but we may hazard the correction of "Master of the crew."
c. 1590.—"In large ships there are twelve classes. 1. The Nákhudá, or owner of the ship.... 3. The Tandíl, or chief of the khaláçis (see CLASSY) or sailors...."—Āīn, i. 280.
1673.—"The Captain is called Nucquedah, the boatswain Tindal...."—Fryer, 107.
1758.—"One Tindal, or Corporal of Lascars."—Orme, ii. 339.
[1826.—"I desired the tindal, or steersman to answer, 'Bombay.'"—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, ii. 157.]
TINNEVELLY, n.p. A town and district of Southern India, probably Tiru-nel-vēli, 'Sacred Rice-hedge.' [The Madras Gloss. gives 'Sacred Paddy-village.'] The district formed the southern part of the Madura territory, and first became a distinct district about 1744, when the Madura Kingdom was incorporated with the territories under the Nawāb of Arcot (Caldwell, H. of Tinnevelly).
TIPARRY, s. Beng. and Hind. tipārī, tepārī, the fruit of Physalis peruviana, L., N.O. Solanaceae. It is also known in India as 'Cape gooseberry,' [which is usually said to take its name from the Cape of Good Hope, but as it is a native of tropical America, Mr. Ferguson (8 ser. N. & Q. xii. 106) suggests that the word may really be cape or cap, from the peculiarity of its structure noted below.] It is sometimes known as 'Brazil cherry.' It gets its generic name from the fact that the inflated calyx encloses the fruit as in a bag or bladder (φύσα). It has a slightly acid gooseberry flavour, and makes excellent jam. We have seen a suggestion somewhere that the Bengali name is connected with the word tenpā, 'inflated,' which gives its name to a species of tetrodon or globe-fish, a fish which has the power of dilating the œsophagus in a singular manner. The native name of the fruit in N.W. India is māk or māko, but tipārī is in general Anglo-Indian use. The use of an almost identical name for a gooseberry-like fruit, in a Polynesian Island (Kingsmill group) quoted below from Wilkes, is very curious, but we can say no more on the matter.
1845.—"On Makin they have a kind of fruit resembling the gooseberry, called by the natives 'teiparu'; this they pound, {924b}after it is dried, and make with molasses into cakes, which are sweet and pleasant to the taste."—U.S. Expedition, by C. Wilkes, U.S.N., v. 81.
1878.—"... The enticing tipari in its crackly covering...."—P. Robinson, In My Indian Garden, 49-50.
TIPPOO SAHIB, n.p. The name of this famous enemy of the English power in India was, according to C. P. Brown, taken from that of Tipū Sultān, a saint whose tomb is near Hyderabad. [Wilks (Hist. Sketches, i. 522, ed. 1869), says that the tomb is at Arcot.]
TIRKUT, s. Foresail. Sea Hind. from Port. triquette (Roebuck).
TIYAN, n.p. Malayāl. Tīyan, or Tīvan, pl. Tīyar or Tīvar. The name of what may be called the third caste (in rank) of Malabar. The word signifies 'islander,' [from Mal. tīvu, Skt. dvīpa, 'an island']; and the people are supposed to have come from Ceylon (see TIER CUTTY).
1510.—"The third class of Pagans are called Tiva, who are artizans."—Varthema, 142.
1516.—"The cleanest of these low and rustic people are called Tuias (read Tivas), who are great labourers, and their chief business is to look after the palm-trees, and gather their fruit, and carry everything ... for hire, because there are no draught cattle in the country."—Barbosa, Lisbon ed. 335.
[1800.—"All Tirs can eat together, and intermarry. The proper duty of the cast is to extract the juice from palm-trees, to boil it down to Jagory (Jaggery), and to distil it into spirituous liquors; but they are also very diligent as cultivators, porters, and cutters of firewood."—Buchanan, Mysore, ii. 415; and see Logan, Malabar, i. 110, 142.]
TOBACCO, s. On this subject we are not prepared to furnish any elaborate article, but merely to bring together a few quotations touching on the introduction of tobacco into India and the East, or otherwise of interest.
[? c. 1550.—"... Abū Kīr would carry the cloth to the market-street and sell it, and with its price buy meat and vegetables and tobacco...."—Burton, Arab. Nights, vii. 210. The only mention in the Nights and the insertion of some scribe.]
" "It has happened to me several times, that going through the provinces of Guatemala and Nicaragua I have entered the house of an Indian who had taken this herb, which in the Mexican language is called tabacco, and immediately perceived {925a}the sharp fetid smell of this truly diabolical and stinking smoke, I was obliged to go away in haste, and seek some other place."—Girolamo Benzoni, Hak. Soc. p. 81. [The word tabaco is from the language of Hayti, and meant, first, the pipe, secondly, the plant, thirdly, the sleep which followed its use (Mr. J. Platt, 9 ser. N. & Q. viii. 322).]
1585.—"Et hi" (viz. Ralph Lane and the first settlers in Virginia) "reduces Indicam illam plantam quam Tabaccam vocant et Nicotiam, qua contra cruditates ab Indis edocti, usi erant, in Angliam primi, quod suam, intulerunt. Ex illo sane tempore usu coepit esse creberrimo, et magno pretio, dum quam plurimi graveolentem illius fumum, alii lascivientes, alii valetudini consulentes, per tubulum testaceum inexplebili aviditate passim hauriunt, et mox e naribus efflant; adeo ut tabernae Tabaccanae non minus quam cervisiariae et vinariae passim per oppida habeantur. Ut Anglorum corpora (quod salse ille dixit) qui hac plantâ tantopere delectantur in Barbarorum naturam degenerasse videantur; quum iisdem quibus Barbari delectentur et sanari se posse credant."—Gul. Camdeni, Annal. Rerum Anglicanum ... regn. Elizabetha, ed. 1717, ii. 449.
1592.—
"Into the woods thence forth in haste shee went
To seeke for hearbes that mote him remedy;
For shee of herbes had great intendiment,
Taught of the Nymphe which from her infancy
Her nourced had in true Nobility:
This whether yt divine Tobacco were,
Or Panachaea, or Polygony,
Shee fownd, and brought it to her patient deare
Who al this while lay bleding out his hart-blood neare."
The Faerie Queen, III. v. 32.
1597.—"His Lordship" (E. of Essex at Villafranca) "made no answer, but called for tobacco, seeming to give but small credit to this alarm; and so on horseback, with these noblemen and gentlemen on foot beside him, took tobacco, whilst I was telling his Lordship of the men I had sent forth, and the order I had given them. Within some quarter of an hour, we might hear a good round volley of shot betwixt the 30 men I had sent to the chapel, and the enemy, which made his Lordship cast his pipe from him, and listen to the shooting."—Commentaries of Sir Francis Vere, p. 62.
1598.—"Cob. Ods me I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco. It is good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of them they say will never scape it; he voided a bushel of soot yesterday upward and downward ... its little better than rats-bane or rosaker."—Every Man in his Humour, iii. 2.
1604.—"Oct. 19. Demise to Tho. Lane and Ph. Bold of the new Impost of 6s. 8d., and the old Custom of 2d. per pound on tobacco."—Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, James I., p. 159.
1604 or 1605.—"In Bijápúr I had found some tobacco. Never having seen the like in India, I brought some with me, and prepared a handsome pipe of jewel work.... His Majesty (Akbar) was enjoying himself after receiving my presents, and asking me how I had collected so many strange things in so short a time, when his eye fell upon the tray with the pipe and its appurtenances: he expressed great surprise and examined the tobacco, which was made up in pipefuls; he inquired what it was, and where I had got it. The Nawab Khán-i-'Azam replied: 'This is tobacco, which is well known in Mecca and Medina, and this doctor has brought it as a medicine for your Majesty.' His Majesty looked at it, and ordered me to prepare and take him a pipeful. He began to smoke it, when his physician approached and forbade his doing so" ... (omitting much that is curious). "As I had brought a large supply of tobacco and pipes, I sent some to several of the nobles, while others sent to ask for some; indeed all, without exception, wanted some, and the practice was introduced. After that the merchants began to sell it, so the custom of smoking spread rapidly."—Asad Beg, in Elliot, vi. 165-167.
1610.—"The Turkes are also incredible takers of Opium ... carrying it about with them both in peace and in warre; which they say expelleth all feare, and makes them couragious; but I rather think giddy headed.... And perhaps for the self same cause they also delight in Tobacco; they take it through reeds that have ioyned vnto them great heads of wood to containe it: I doubt not but lately taught them, as brought them by the English: and were it not sometimes lookt into (for Morat Bassa not long since commanded a pipe to be thrust through the nose of a Turke, and so to be led in derision through the Citie,) no question but it would prove a principall commodity. Neverthelesse they will take it in corners, and are so ignorant therein, that that which in England is not saleable, doth passe here amongst them for most excellent."—Sandys, Journey, 66.
1615.—"Il tabacco ancora usano qui" (at Constantinople) "di pigliar in conversazione per gusto: ma io non ho voluto mai provarne, e ne avera cognizione in Italia che molti ne pigliano, ed in particolare il signore cardinale Crescenzio qualche volta per medicamento insegnatogli dal Signor don Virginio Orsino, che primo di tutti, se io non fallo, gli anni addietro lo portò in Roma d'Inghilterra."—P. della Valle, i. 76.
1616.—"Such is the miraculous omnipotence of our strong tasted Tobacco, as it cures al sorts of diseases (which neuer any drugge could do before) in all persons and at all times.... It cures the gout in the feet and (which is miraculous) in that very {926a}instant when the smoke thereof, as light, flies vp into the head, the virtue thereof, as heauy, runs down to the litle toe. It helps all sorts of agues. It refreshes a weary man, and yet makes a man hungry. Being taken when they goe to bed, it makes one sleepe soundly, and yet being taken when a man is sleepie and drousie, it will, as they say, awake his braine, and quicken his vnderstanding.... O omnipotent power of Tobacco! And if it could by the smoake thereof chase out deuils, as the smoake of Tobias fish did (which I am sure could smell no stronglier) it would serve for a precious Relicke, both for the Superstitious Priests, and the insolent Puritanes, to cast out deuils withall."—K. James I., Counterblaste to Tobacco, in Works, pp. 219-220.
1617.—"As the smoking of tobacco (tambákú) had taken very bad effect upon the health and mind of many persons, I ordered that no one should practise the habit. My brother Sháh 'Abbás, also being aware of its evil effects, had issued a command against the use of it in Irán. But Khán-i-'Alam was so much addicted to smoking, that he could not abstain from it, and often smoked."—Memoirs of Jahángír, in Elliot, v. 851. See the same passage rendered by Blochmann, in Ind. Antiq. i. 164.
1623.—"Incipit nostro seculo in immensum crescere usus tobacco, atque afficit homines occulta quidem delectatione, ut qui illi semel assueti sint, difficile postea abstinent."—Bacon, H. Vitae et Mortis, in B. Montague's ed. x. 189.
We are unable to give the date or Persian author of the following extract (though clearly of the 17th century), which with an introductory sentence we have found in a fragmentary note in the handwriting of the late Major William Yule, written in India about the beginning of last century:[270]
"Although Tobacco be the produce of an European Plant, it has nevertheless been in use by our Physicians medicinally for some time past. Nay, some creditable People even have been friendly to the use of it, though from its having been brought sparingly in the first instance from Europe, its rarity prevented it from coming into general use. The Culture of this Plant, however, became speedily almost universal, within a short period after its introduction into Hindostaun; and the produce of it rewarded the Cultivator far beyond every other article of Husbandry. This became more especially the case in the reign of Shah Jehaun (commenced A.H. 1037) when the Practice of Smoking pervaded all Ranks {926b}and Classes within the Empire. Nobles and Beggars, Pious and Wicked, Devotees and Free-thinkers, poets, historians, rhetoricians, doctors and patients, high and low, rich and poor, all! all seemed intoxicated with a decided preference over every other luxury, nay even often over the necessaries of life. To a stranger no offering was so acceptable as a Whiff, and to a friend one could produce nothing half so grateful as a Chillum. So rooted was the habit that the confirmed Smoker would abstain from Food and Drink rather than relinquish the gratification he derived from inhaling the Fumes of this deleterious Plant! Nature recoils at the very idea of touching the Saliva of another Person, yet in the present instance our Tobacco smokers pass the moistened Tube from one mouth to another without hesitation on the one hand, and it is received with complacency on the other! The more acrid the Fumes so much the more grateful to the Palate of the Connoisseur. The Smoke is a Collyrium to the Eyes, whilst the Fire, they will tell you, supplies to the Body the waste of radical Heat. Without doubt the Hookah is a most pleasing Companion, whether to the Wayworn Traveller or to the solitary Hermit. It is a Friend in whose Bosom we may repose our most confidential Secrets; and a Counsellor upon whose advice we may rely in our most important Concerns. It is an elegant Ornament in our private Appartments: it gives joy to the Beholder in our public Halls. The Music of its sound puts the warbling of the Nightingale to Shame, and the Fragrance of its Perfume brings a Blush on the Cheek of the Rose. Life in short is prolonged by the Fumes inhaled at each inspiration, whilst every expiration of them is accompanied with extatic delight...."—(cætera desunt).
c. 1760.—"Tambákú. It is known from the Maásir-i-Rahímí that the tobacco came from Europe to the Dakhin, and from the Dakhin to Upper India, during the reign of Akbar Sháh (1556-1605), since which time it has been in general use."—Bahár-i'-Ajam, quoted by Blochmann, in Ind. Antiq. i. 164.
1878.—It appears from Miss Bird's Japan that tobacco was not cultivated in that country till 1605. In 1612 and 1615 the Shogun prohibited both culture and use of tabako.—See the work, i. 276-77. [According to Mr. Chamberlain (Things Japanese, 3rd ed. p. 402) by 1651 the law was so far relaxed that smoking was permitted, but only out-of-doors.]
TOBRA, s. Hind. tobṛā, [which, according to Platts, is Skt. protha, 'nose of a horse,' inverted]. The leather nose-bag in which a horse's feed is administered. "In the Nerbudda valley, in Central India, the women wear a profusion of toe-rings, some standing up an inch high. Their shoes are consequently curiously shaped, and are called tobras" (M.-Gen. R. H. {927a}Keatinge). As we should say, 'buckets.' [The use of the nosebag is referred to by Sir T. Herbert (ed. 1634): "The horses (of the Persians) feed usually of barley and chopt-straw put into a bag, and fastened about their heads, which implyes the manger." Also see TURA.]
1808.—"... stable-boys are apt to serve themselves to a part out of the poor beasts allowance; to prevent which a thrifty housewife sees it put into a tobra, or mouth bag, and spits thereon to make the Hostler loathe and leave it alone."—Drummond, Illustrations, &c.
[1875.—"One of the horsemen dropped his tobra or nose-bag."—Drew, Jummoo, 240.]
TODDY, s. A corruption of Hind. tāṛī, i.e. the fermented sap of the tāṛ or palmyra, Skt. tāla, and also of other palms, such as the date, the coco-palm, and the Caryota urens; palm-wine. Toddy is generally the substance used in India as yeast, to leaven bread. The word, as is well known, has received a new application in Scotland, the immediate history of which we have not traced. The tāla-tree seems to be indicated, though confusedly, in this passage of Megasthenes from Arrian:
c. B.C. 320.—"Megasthenes tells us ... the Indians were in old times nomadic ... were so barbarous that they wore the skins of such wild animals as they could kill, and subsisted (?) on the bark of trees; that these trees were called in the Indian speech tala, and that there grew on them as there grows at the tops of the (date) palm trees, a fruit resembling balls of wool."—Arrian, Indica, vii., tr. by McCrindle.
c. 1330.—"... There is another tree of a different species, which ... gives all the year round a white liquor, pleasant to drink, which tree is called tari."—Fr. Jordanus, 16.
[1554.—"There is in Gujaret a tree of the palm-tribe, called tari agadji (millet tree). From its branches cups are suspended, and when the cut end of a branch is placed into one of these vessels, a sweet liquid, something of the nature of arrack, flows out in a continuous stream ... and presently changes into a most wonderful wine."—Travels of Sidi Ali Reïs, trans. A. Vambéry, p. 29.]
[1609-10.—"Tarree." See under SURA.]
1611.—"Palmiti Wine, which they call Taddy."—N. Dounton, in Purchas, i. 298.
[1614.—"A sort of wine that distilleth out of the Palmetto trees, called Tadie."—Foster, Letters, iii. 4.]
1615.—
"... And then more to glad yee
Weele have a health to al our friends in Tadee."
Verses to T. Coryat, in Crudities, iii. 47.
1623.—"... on board of which we stayed till nightfall, entertaining with conversation and drinking tari, a liquor which is drawn from the coco-nut trees, of a whitish colour, a little turbid, and of a somewhat rough taste, though with a blending in sweetness, and not unpalatable, something like one of our vini piccanti. It will also intoxicate, like wine, if drunk over freely."—P. della Valle, ii. 530; [Hak. Soc. i. 62].
[1634.—"The Toddy-tree is like the Date of Palm; the Wine called Toddy is got by wounding and piercing the Tree, and putting a Jar or Pitcher under it, so as the Liquor may drop into it."—Sir T. Herbert, in Harris, i. 408.]
1648.—"The country ... is planted with palmito-trees, from which a sap is drawn called Terry, that they very commonly drink."—Van Twist, 12.
1653.—"... le tari qui est le vin ordinaire des Indes."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, 246.
1673.—"The Natives singing and roaring all Night long; being drunk with Toddy, the Wine of the Cocoe."—Fryer, 53.
" "As for the rest, they are very respectful, unless the Seamen and Soldiers get drunk, either with Toddy or Bang."—Ibid. 91.
1686.—"Besides the Liquor or Water in the Fruit, there is also a sort of Wine drawn from the Tree called Toddy, which looks like Whey."—Dampier, i. 293.
1705.—"... cette liqueur s'appelle tarif."—Luillier, 43.
1710.—This word was in common use at Madras.—Wheeler, ii. 125.
1750.—"J. Was vor Leute trincken Taddy? C. Die Soldaten, die Land Portugiesen, die Parreier (see PARIAH) und Schiffleute trincken diesen Taddy."—Madras, oder Fort St. George, &c., Halle, 1750.
1857.—"It is the unfermented juice of the Palmyra which is used as food: when allowed to ferment, which it will do before midday, if left to itself, it is changed into a sweet, intoxicating drink called 'kal' or 'toddy.'"—Bp. Caldwell, Lectures on Tinnevelly Mission, p. 33.
 59.
Of the Scotch application of the word we can find but one example in Burns, and, strange to say, no mention in Jameson's Dictionary:
1785.—
"The lads an' lasses, blythely bent
To mind baith saul an' body,
Sit round the table, weel content
An' steer about the toddy...."
Burns, The Holy Fair.
1798.—"Action of the case, for giving her a dose in some toddy, to intoxicate and inflame her passions."—Roots's Reports, i. 80.
1804.—
"... I've nae fear for't;
For siller, faith, ye ne'er did care for't,
Unless to help a needful body,
An' get an antrin glass o' toddy."
Tannahill, Epistle to James Barr.
TODDY-BIRD, s. We do not know for certain what bird is meant by this name in the quotation. The nest would seem to point to the Baya, or Weaver-bird (Ploceus Baya, Blyth): but the size alleged is absurd; it is probably a blunder. [Another bird, the Artamus fuscus, is, according to Balfour (Cycl. s.v.) called the toddy shrike.]
[1673.—"For here is a Bird (having its name from the Tree it chuses for its Sanctuary, the toddy-tree)...."—Fryer, 76.]
c. 1750-60.—"It is in this tree (see PALMYRA, BRAB) that the toddy-birds, so called from their attachment to that tree, make their exquisitely curious nests, wrought out of the thinnest reeds and filaments of branches, with an inimitable mechanism, and are about the bigness of a partridge (?) The birds themselves are of no value...."—Grose, i. 48.
TODDY-CAT, s. This name is in S. India applied to the Paradoxurus Musanga, Jerdon: [the P. niger, the Indian Palm-Civet of Blanford (Mammalia, 106).] It infests houses, especially where there is a ceiling of cloth (see CHUTT). Its name is given for its fondness, real or supposed, for palm-juice.
[TOKO, s. Slang for 'a thrashing.' The word is imper. of Hind. ṭoknā, 'to censure, blame,' and has been converted into a noun on the analogy of bunnow and other words of the same kind.
[1823.—"Toco for yam—Yams are food for negroes in the W. Indies ... and if, instead of receiving his proper ration of these, blackee gets a whip (toco) about his back, why 'he has caught toco' instead of yam."—John Bee, Slang Dict.
[1867.—"Toko for Yam. An expression peculiar to negroes for crying out before being hurt."—Smyth, Sailor's Word-Book, s.v.]
TOLA, s. An Indian weight (chiefly of gold or silver), not of extreme antiquity. Hind. tolā, Skt. tulā, 'a balance,' tul, 'to lift up, to weigh.' The Hindu scale is 8 rattīs (see RUTTEE) = 1 māsha, 12 māshas = 1 tolā. Thus the tolā was equal to 96 rattīs. The proper weight of the rattī, which was the old Indian unit of weight, has been determined by Mr. E. Thomas as 1.75 grains, and the medieval tanga which was the prototype of the rupee was of 100 rattīs weight. "But ... the factitious rattī of the Muslims was merely an aliquot part—1⁄96 of the comparatively recent tola, and 1⁄92 of the newly devised rupee." By the Regulation VII. of 1833, putting the British India coinage on its present footing (see under SEER) the tolā weighing 180 grs., which is also the weight of the rupee, is established by the same Regulation, as the unit of the system of weights, 80 tolas = 1 ser, 40 sers = 1 Maund.
1563.—"I knew a secretary of Nizamoxa (see NIZAMALUCO), a native of Coraçon, who ate every day three tollas (of opium), which is the weight of ten cruzados and a half; but this Coraçoni (Khorasānī), though he was a man of letters and a great scribe and official, was always nodding or sleeping."—Garcia, f. 155b.
1610.—"A Tole is a rupee challany of silver, and ten of these Toles are the value of one of gold."—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 217.
1615-16.—"Two tole and a half being an ounce."—Sir T. Roe, in Purchas, i. 545; [Hak. Soc. i. 183].
1676.—"Over all the Empire of the Great Mogul, all the Gold and Silver is weigh'd with Weights, which they call Tolla, which amounts to 9 deniers and eight grains of our weight."—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 18; [ed. Ball, i. 14].
TOMAUN, s. A Mongol word, signifying 10,000, and constantly used in the histories of the Mongol dynasties for a division of an army theoretically consisting of that number. But its modern application is to a Persian money, at the present time worth about 7s. 6d. [In 1899 the exchange was about 53 crans to the £1; 10 Crans = 1 tumān.] Till recently it was only a money of account, representing 10,000 dīnārs; the latter also having been in Persia for centuries only a money of account, constantly degenerating in value. The tomaun in Fryer's time (1677) is reckoned by him {929a}as equal to £3, 6s. 8d. P. della Valle's estimate 60 years earlier would give about £4, 10s. 0d., and is perhaps loose and too high. Sir T. Herbert's valuation (5 × 13s. 8d.) is the same as Fryer's. In the first and third of the following quotations we have the word in the Tartar military sense, for a division of 10,000 men:
1298.—"You see when a Tartar prince goes forth to war, he takes with him, say, 100,000 horse ... they call the corps of 100,000 men a Tuc; that of 10,000 they call a Toman."—Marco Polo, Bk. i. ch. 54.
c. 1340.—"Ces deux portions réunies formaient un total de 800 toumans, dont chacun vaut 10,000 dinars courants, et le dinar 6 dirhems."—Shihābuddīn, Masālak-al Abṣār, in Not. et Exts. xiii. 194.
c. 1347.—"I was informed ... that when the Kān assembled his troops, and called the array of his forces together, there were with him 100 divisions of horse, each composed of 10,000 men, the chief of whom was called Amīr Tumān, or lord of 10,000."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 299-300.
A form of the Tartar word seems to have passed into Russian:
c. 1559.—"One thousand in the language of the people is called Tissutze: likewise ten thousand in a single word Tma: twenty thousand Duuetma: thirty thousand Titma."—Herberstein, Della Moscovia, Ramusio, iii. 159.
[c. 1590.—In the Sarkár of Kandahár "eighteen dinárs make a tumán, and each tumán is equivalent to 800 dáms. The tumán of Khurasán is equal in value to 30 rupees and the tumán of Irák to 40."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, ii. 393-94.]
1619.—"L'ambasciadore Indiano ... ordinò che donasse a tutti un tomano, cioè dieci zecchini per uno."—P. della Valle, ii. 22.
c. 1630.—"But how miserable so ere it seemes to others, the Persian King makes many happy harvests; filling every yeere his insatiate coffers with above 350,000 Tomans (a Toman is five markes sterlin)."—Sir T. Herbert, p. 225.
[c. 1665.—In Persia "the abási is worth 4 sháhis, and the tomán 50 abásis or 200 sháhis."—Tavernier, ed. Ball, i. 24.]
1677.—"... Receipt of Custom (at Gombroon) for which he pays the King yearly Twenty-two thousand Thomands, every Thomand making Three pound and a Noble in our Accompt, Half which we have a Right to."—Fryer, 222.
1711.—"Camels, Houses, &c., are generally sold by the Tomand, which is 200 Shahees or 50 Abassees; and they usually reckon their Estates that way; such a man is worth so many Tomands, as we reckon by Pounds in England."—Lockyer, 229.
[1858.—"Girwur Singh, Tomandar, came up with a detachment of the special police."—Sleeman, Journey through Oudh, ii. 17.]
TOMBACK, s. An alloy of copper and zinc, i.e. a particular modification of brass, formerly imported from Indo-Chinese countries. Port. tambaca, from Malay tāmbaga and tămbaga, 'copper,' which is again from Skt. tamṛika and tāmra.
1602.—"Their drummes are huge pannes made of a metall called Tombaga, which makes a most hellish sound."—Scott, Discourse of Iaua, in Purchas, i. 180.
1690.—"This Tombac is a kind of Metal, whose scarcity renders it more valuable than Gold.... 'Tis thought to be a kind of natural Compound of Gold, Silver, and Brass, and in some places the mixture is very Rich, as at Borneo, and the Moneilloes, in others more allayed, as at Siam."—Ovington, 510.
1759.—"The Productions of this Country (Siam) are prodigious quantities of Grain, Cotton, Benjamin ... and Tambanck."—In Dalrymple, i. 119.
TOM-TOM, s. Ṭamṭam, a native drum. The word comes from India, and is chiefly used there. Forbes (Rās-Mālā, ii. 401) [ed. 1878, p. 665] says the thing is so called because used by criers who beat it tām-tām, 'place by place,' i.e. first at one place, then at another. But it is rather an onomatopoeia, not belonging to any language in particular. In Ceylon it takes the form tamaṭṭama, in Tel. tappeta, in Tam. tambattam; in Malay it is toṅtoṅ, all with the same meaning. [When badminton was introduced at Satāra natives called it Ṭamṭam phūl khel, ṭam-ṭam meaning 'battledore,' and the shuttlecock looked like a flower (phūl). Tommy Atkins promptly turned this into "Tom Fool" (Calcutta Rev. xcvi. 346).] In French the word tamtam is used, not for a drum of any kind, but for a Chinese gong (q.v.). M. Littré, however, in the Supplement to his Dict., remarks that this use is erroneous.
1693.—"It is ordered that to-morrow morning the Choultry Justices do cause the Tom Tom to be beat through all the Streets of the Black Town...."—In Wheeler, i. 268.
1711.—"Their small Pipes, and Tom Toms, instead of Harmony made the Discord the greater."—Lockyer, 235.
1755.—In the Calcutta Mayor's expenses we find:
"Tom Tom, R. 1 1 0."—In Long, 56.
1764.—"You will give strict orders to the Zemindars to furnish Oil and Musshauls, and Tom Toms and Pikemen, &c., according to custom."—Ibid. 391.
1770.—"... An instrument of brass which the Europeans lately borrowed from the Turks to add to their military music, and which is called a tam" (!).—Abbé Raynal, tr. 1777, i. 30.
1789.—"An harsh kind of music from a tom-tom or drum, accompanied by a loud rustic pipe, sounds from different parties throughout the throng...."—Munro, Narrative, 73.
1804.—"I request that they may be hanged; and let the cause of their punishment be published in the bazar by beat of tom-tom."—Wellington, iii. 186.
1824.—"The Mahrattas in my vicinity kept up such a confounded noise with the tamtams, cymbals, and pipes, that to sleep was impossible."—Seely, Wonders of Ellora, ch. iv.
1836.—For the use of the word by Dickens, see under GUM-GUM.
1862.—"The first musical instruments were without doubt percussive sticks, calabashes, tomtoms."—Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 356.
1881.—"The tom-tom is ubiquitous. It knows no rest. It is content with depriving man of his. It selects by preference the hours of the night as the time for its malign influence to assert its most potent sway. It reverberates its dull unmeaning monotones through the fitful dreams which sheer exhaustion brings. It inspires delusive hopes by a brief lull only to break forth with refreshed vigour into wilder ecstacies of maniacal fury—accompanied with nasal incantations and protracted howls...."—Overland Times of India, April 14.
TONGA, s. A kind of light and small two-wheeled vehicle, Hind, tāngā, [Skt. tamanga, 'a platform']. The word has become familiar of late years, owing to the use of the tonga in a modified form on the roads leading up to Simla, Darjeeling, and other hill-stations. [Tavernier speaks of a carriage of this kind, but does not use the word:
[c. 1665.—"They have also, for travelling, small, very light, carriages which contain two persons; but usually one travels alone ... to which they harness a pair of oxen only. These carriages, which are provided, like ours, with curtains and cushions, are not slung...."—Tavernier, ed. Ball, i. 44.]
1874.—"The villages in this part of the country are usually superior to those in Poona or Sholápur, and the people appear to be in good circumstances.... The custom too, which is common, of driving light Tongas drawn by ponies or oxen points to the same conclusion."—Settlement Report of Násik.
1879.—"A tongha dâk has at last been started between Rajpore and Dehra. The first tongha took only 5½ hours from Rajpore to Saharunpore."—Pioneer Mail.
1880.—"In the (Times) of the 19th of April we are told that 'Syud Mahomed Padshah has repulsed the attack on his fort instigated by certain moolahs of tonga dâk.'... Is the relentless tonga a region of country or a religious organization?... The original telegram appears to have contemplated a full stop after 'certain moollahs.' Then came an independent sentence about the tonga dâk working admirably between Peshawur and Jellalabad, but the sub-editor of the Times, interpreting the message referred to, made sense of it in the way we have seen, associating the ominous mystery with the moollahs, and helping out the other sentence with some explanatory ideas of his own."—Pioneer Mail, June 10.
1881.—"Bearing in mind Mr. Framji's extraordinary services, notably those rendered during the mutiny, and ... that he is crippled for life ... by wounds received while gallantly defending the mail tonga cart in which he was travelling, when attacked by dacoits...."—Letter from Bombay Govt. to Govt. of India, June 17, 1881.
TONICATCHY, TUNNYKETCH, s. In Madras this is the name of the domestic water-carrier, who is generally a woman, and acts as a kind of under housemaid. It is a corr. of Tamil tannir-kāssi, tannikkāriççi, an abbreviation of tannīr-kāsatti, 'water-woman.'
c. 1780.—"'Voudriez-vous me permettre de faire ce trajet avec mes gens et mes bagages, qui ne consistent qu'en deux malles, quatre caisses de vin, deux ballots de toiles, et deux femmes, dont l'une est ma cuisinière, et l'autre, ma tannie karetje ou porteuse d'eau.'"—Haafner, i. 242.
1792.—"The Armenian ... now mounts a bit of blood ... and ... dashes the mud about through the streets of the Black Town, to the admiration and astonishment of the Tawny-kertches."—Madras Courier, April 26.
TONJON, and vulg. TOMJOHN, s. A sort of sedan or portable chair. It is (at least in the Bengal Presidency) carried like a palankin by a single pole and four bearers, whereas a jompon (q.v.), for use in a hilly country, has two poles like a European sedan, each pair of bearers bearing it by a stick between the poles, to which the latter are slung. We cannot tell what the origin of this word is, nor explain the etymology given by Williamson below, unless it is intended for thām-jāngh, which might mean 'support-thigh.' Mr. Platts gives as forms in Hind. tāmjhām and thāmjān. The word is perhaps adopted from some trans-gangetic language. A rude {931a}contrivance of this kind in Malabar is described by Col. Welsh under the name of a 'Tellicherry chair' (ii. 40).
c. 1804.—"I had a tonjon, or open palanquin, in which I rode."—Mrs. Sherwood, Autobiog. 283.
1810.—"About Dacca, Chittagong, Tipperah, and other mountainous parts, a very light kind of conveyance is in use, called a taum-jaung, i.e. 'a support to the feet.'"—Williamson, V.M. i. 322-23.
" "Some of the party at the tents sent a tonjon, or open chair, carried like a palankeen, to meet me."—Maria Graham, 166.
[1827.—"In accordance with Lady D'Oyly's earnest wish I go out every morning in her tonjin."—Diary of Mrs. Fenton, 100.]
1829.—"I had been conveyed to the hill in Hanson's tonjon, which differs only from a palanquin in being like the body of a gig with a head to it."—Mem. of Col. Mountain, 88.
[1832.—"... I never seat myself in the palankeen or thonjaun without a feeling bordering on self-reproach...."—Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, Observations, i. 320.]
1839.—"He reined up his ragged horse, facing me, and dancing about till I had passed; then he dashed past me at full gallop, wheeled round, and charged my tonjon, bending down to his saddlebow, pretending to throw a lance, showing his teeth, and uttering a loud quack!"—Letters from Madras, 290.
[1849.—"We proceeded to Nawabgunge, the minister riding out with me, for some miles, to take leave, as I sat in my tonjohn."—Sleeman, Journey through Oudh, i. 2.]
TOOLSY, s. The holy Basil of the Hindus (Ocimum sanctum, L.), Skt. tulsī or tulasī, frequently planted in a vase upon a pedestal of masonry in the vicinity of Hindu temples or dwellings. Sometimes the ashes of deceased relatives are preserved in these domestic shrines. The practice is alluded to by Fr. Odoric as in use at Tana, near Bombay (see Cathay, i. 59, c. 1322); and it is accurately described by the later ecclesiastic quoted below. See also Ward's Hindoos, ii. 203. The plant has also a kind of sanctity in the Greek Church, and a character for sanitary value at least on the shores of the Mediterranean generally.
[c. 1650.—"They who bear the tulasī round the neck ... they are Vaishnavas, and sanctify the world."—Bhaktā Mālā, in H. H. Wilson's Works, i. 41.]
1672.—"Almost all the Hindus ... adore a plant like our Basilico gentile, but of more pungent odour.... Every one before his house has a little altar, girt with {931b}a wall half an ell high, in the middle of which they erect certain pedestals like little towers, and in these the shrub is grown. They recite their prayers daily before it, with repeated prostrations, sprinklings of water, &c. There are also many of these maintained at the bathing-places, and in the courts of the pagodas."—P. Vincenzo Maria, 300.
1673.—"They plaster Cow-dung before their Doors; and so keep themselves clean, having a little place or two built up a Foot Square of Mud, where they plant Calaminth, or (by them called) Tulce, which they worship every Morning, and tend with Diligence."—Fryer, 199.
1842.—"Veneram a planta chamada Tulosse, por dizerem é do pateo dos Deoses, e por isso é commun no pateo de suas casas, e todas as manhãs lhe vão tributar veneração."—Annaes Maritimos, iii. 453.
1872.—"At the head of the ghát, on either side, is a sacred tulasi plant ... placed on a high pedestal of masonry."—Govinda Samanta, i. 18.
The following illustrates the esteem attached to Toolsy in S. Europe:
1885.—"I have frequently realised how much prized the basil is in Greece for its mystic properties. The herb, which they say grew on Christ's grave, is almost worshipped in the Eastern Church. On St. Basil's day women take sprigs of this plant to be blessed in church. On returning home they cast some on the floor of the house, to secure luck for the ensuing year.  Another bit they put in their cupboard, and firmly believe that their embroideries and silken raiment will be free from the visitation of rats, mice, and moths, for the same period."—J. T. Bent, The Cyclades, p. 328.
TOOMONGONG, s. A Malay title, especially known as borne by one of the chiefs of Johōr, from whom the Island of Singapore was purchased. The Sultans of Johōr are the representatives of the old Mahommedan dynasty of Malacca, which took refuge in Johōr, and the adjoining islands (including Bintang especially), when expelled by Albuquerque in 1511, whilst the Tumanggung was a minister who had in Peshwa fashion appropriated the power of the Sultan, with hereditary tenure: and this chief now lives, we believe, at Singapore. Crawfurd says: "The word is most probably Javanese; and in Java is the title of a class of nobles, not of an office" (Malay Dict. s.v.)
[1774.—"Paid a visit to the Sultan ... and Pangaram Toomongong...."—Diary {932a}of J. Herbert, in Forrest, Bombay Letters, Home Series, ii. 438.
[1830.—"This (Bopáti), however, is rather a title of office than of mere rank, as these governors are sometimes Tumúng'gungs, An'gebáis, and of still inferior rank."—Raffles, Java, 2nd ed. i. 299.]
1884.—"Singapore had originally been purchased from two Malay chiefs; the Sultan and Tumangong of Johore. The former, when Sir Stamford Raffles entered into the arrangement with them, was the titular sovereign, whilst the latter, who held an hereditary office, was the real ruler."—Cavenagh, Reminis. of an Indian Official, 273.
TOON, TOON-WOOD, s. The tree and timber of the Cedrela Toona, Roxb. N.O. Meliaceae. Hind. tun, tūn, Skt. tunna. The timber is like a poor mahogany, and it is commonly used for furniture and fine joiner's work in many parts of India. It is identified by Bentham with the Red Cedar of N.S. Wales and Queensland (Cedrela australis, F. Mueller). See Brandis, Forest Flora, 73. A sp. of the same genus (C. sinensis) is called in Chinese ch'un, which looks like the same word.
[1798.—The tree first described by Sir W. Jones, As. Res. iv. 288.]
1810.—"The toon, or country mahogany, which comes from Bengal...."—Maria Graham, 101.
1837.—"Rosellini informs us that there is an Egyptian harp at Florence, of which the wood is what is commonly called E. Indian mahogany (Athenaeum, July 22, 1837). This may be the Cedrela Toona."—Royle's Hindu Medicine, 30.
TOORKEY, s. A Turkī horse, i.e. from Turkestan. Marco Polo uses what is practically the same word for a horse from the Turcoman horse-breeders of Asia Minor.
1298.—"... the Turcomans ... dwell among mountains and downs where they find good pasture, for their occupation is cattle-keeping. Excellent horses, known as Turquans, are reared in their country...."—Marco Polo, Bk. i. ch. 2.
[c. 1590.—"The fourth class (Turkí) are horses imported from Turán; though strong and well formed, they do not come up to the preceding (Arabs, Persian, Mujannas)."—Āīn, i. 234.
[1663.—"If they are found to be Turki horses, that is from Turkistan or Tartary, and of a proper size and adequate strength, they are branded on the thigh with the King's mark...."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 243.]
1678.—"Four horses bought for the Company—
| Pagodas. | |
| One young Arab at | 160 |
| One old Turkey at | 40 |
| One old Atchein at | 20 |
| One of this country at | 20 |
| 240." | |
| Ft. St. Geo. Consns., March 6, in Notes and Exts., Madras, 1871. |
1782.—"Wanted one or two Tanyans (see TANGUN) rising six years old, Wanted also a Bay Toorkey, or Bay Tazzi (see TAZEE) Horse for a Buggy...."—India Gazette, Feb. 9.
" "To be disposed of at Ghyretty ... a Buggy, almost new ... a pair of uncommonly beautiful spotted Toorkays."—Ibid. March 2.
TOOTNAGUE, s. Port. tutenaga. This word appears to have two different applications. a. A Chinese alloy of copper, zinc, and nickel, sometimes called 'white copper' (i.e. peh-tung of the Chinese). The finest qualities are alleged to contain arsenic.[271] The best comes from Yunnan, and Mr. Joubert of the Garnier Expedition, came to the conclusion that it was produced by a direct mixture of the ores in the furnace (Voyage d'Exploration, ii. 160). b. It is used in Indian trade in the same loose way that spelter is used, for either zinc or pewter (peh-yuen, or 'white lead' of the Chinese). The base of the word is no doubt the Pers. tūtiya, Skt. tuttha, an oxide of zinc, generally in India applied to blue vitriol or sulphate of copper, but the formation of the word is obscure. Possibly the last syllable is merely an adjective affix, in which way nāk is used in Persian. Or it may be nāga in the sense of lead, which is one of the senses given by Shakespear. In one of the quotations given below, tutenague is confounded with calin (see CALAY). Moodeen Sheriff gives as synonyms for zinc, Tam. tuttanāgam [tuttunāgam], Tel. tuttunāgam [tuttināgamu], Mahr. and Guz. tutti-nāga. Sir G. Staunton is curiously wrong in supposing (as his mode of writing seems to imply) that tutenague is a Chinese word. [The word has been finally corrupted in {933a}England into 'tooth and egg' metal, as in a quotation below.]
1605.—"4500 Pikals (see PECUL) of Tintenaga (for Tiutenaga) or Spelter."—In Valentijn, v. 329.
1644.—"That which they export (from Cochin to Orissa) is pepper, although it is prohibited, and all the drugs of the south, with Callaym (see CALAY), Tutunaga, wares of China and Portugal; jewelled ornaments; but much less nowadays, for the reasons already stated...."—Bocarro, MS. f. 316.
1675.—"... from thence with Dollars to China for Sugar, Tea, Porcelane, Laccared Ware, Quicksilver, Tuthinag, and Copper...."—Fryer, 86.
[1676-7.—"... supposing yor Honr may intend to send ye Sugar, Sugar-candy, and Tutonag for Persia...."—Forrest, Bombay Letters, Home Series, i. 125.]
1679.—Letter from Dacca reporting ... "that Dacca is not a good market for Gold, Copper, Lead, Tin or Tutenague."—Ft. St. Geo. Consns., Oct. 31, in Notes and Exts. Madras, 1871.
[ " "In the list of commodities brought from the East Indies, 1678, I find among the drugs, tincal (see TINCALL) and Toothanage set doune. Enquire also what these are...."—Letter of Sir T. Browne, May 29, in N. & Q. 2 ser. vii. 520.]
1727.—"Most of the Spunge in China had pernicious Qualities because the Subterraneous Grounds were stored with Minerals, as Copper, Quicksilver, Allom, Toothenague, &c."—A. Hamilton, ii. 223; [ed. 1744, ii. 222, for "Spunge" reading "Springs"].
1750.—"A sort of Cash made of Toothenague is the only Currency of the Country."—Some Ac. of Cochin China, by Mr. Robert Kirsop, in Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 245.
[1757.—Speaking of the freemen enrolled at Nottingham in 1757, Bailey (Annals of Nottinghamshire, iii. 1235) mentions as one of them William Tutin, buckle-maker, and then goes on to say: "It was a son of this latter person who was the inventor of that beautiful composite white metal, the introduction of which created such a change in numerous articles of ordinary table service in England. This metal, in honour of the inventor, was called Tutinic, but which word, by one of the most absurd perversions of language ever known, became transferred into 'Tooth and Egg,' the name by which it was almost uniformly recognised in the shops."—Quoted in 2 ser. N. & Q. x. 144.]
1780.—"At Quedah, there is a trade for calin (see CALAY) or tutenague ... to export to different parts of the Indies."—Dunn, New Directory, 5th ed. 338.
1797.—"Tu-te-nag is, properly speaking, zinc, extracted from a rich ore or calamine; the ore is powdered and mixed with charcoal dust, and placed in earthen jars over a slow fire, by means of which the metal {933b}rises in form of vapour, in a common distilling apparatus, and afterwards is condensed in water."—Staunton's Acct. of Lord Macartney's Embassy, 4to ed. ii. 540.
TOPAZ, TOPASS, &c., s. A name used in the 17th and 18th centuries for dark-skinned or half-caste claimants of Portuguese descent, and Christian profession. Its application is generally, though not universally, to soldiers of this class, and it is possible that it was originally a corruption of Pers. (from Turkish) top-chī, 'a gunner.' It may be a slight support to this derivation that Italians were employed to cast guns for the Zamorin at Calicut from a very early date in the 16th century, and are frequently mentioned in the annals of Correa between 1503 and 1510. Various other etymologies have however been given. That given by Orme below (and put forward doubtfully by Wilson) from topī, 'a hat,' has a good deal of plausibility, and even if the former etymology be the true origin, it is probable that this one was often in the minds of those using the term, as its true connotation. It may have some corroboration not only in the fact that Europeans are to this day often spoken of by natives (with a shade of disparagement) as Topeewalas (q.v.) or 'Hat-men,' but also in the pride commonly taken by all persons claiming European blood in wearing a hat; indeed Fra Paolino tells us that this class call themselves gente de chapeo (see also the quotation below from Ovington). Possibly however this was merely a misrendering of topaz from the assumed etymology. The same Fra Paolino, with his usual fertility in error, propounds in another passage that topaz is a corruption of do-bhāshiya, 'two-tongued' (in fact is another form of Dubash, q.v.), viz. using Portuguese and a debased vernacular (pp. 50 and 144). [The Madras Gloss. assumes Mal. tópáshi to be a corruption of dubash.] The Topaz on board ship is the sweeper, who is at sea frequently of this class.
1602.—"The 12th ditto we saw to seaward another Champaigne (Sampan) wherein were 20 men, Mestiços (see MUSTEES) and Toupas."—Van Spilbergen's Voyage, p. 34, pub. 1648.
[1672.—"Toepasses." See under MADRAS.]
1673.—"To the Fort then belonged 300 English, and 400 Topazes, or Portugal {934a}Firemen."—Fryer, 66. In his glossarial Index he gives "Topazes, Musketeers."
1680.—"It is resolved and ordered to entertain about 100 Topasses, or Black Portuguese, into pay."—In Wheeler, i. 121.
1686.—"It is resolved, as soon as English soldiers can be provided sufficient for the garrison, that all Topasses be disbanded, and no more entertained, since there is little dependence on them."—In ditto, 159.
1690.—"A Report spread abroad, that a Rich Moor Ship belonging to one Abdal Ghaford, was taken by Hat-men, that is, in their (the Moors) Dialect, Europeans."—Ovington, 411.
1705.—"... Topases, qui sont des gens du pais qu'on élève et qu'on habille à la Françoise, lesquels ont esté instruits dans la Religion Catholique par quelques uns de nos Missionnaires."—Luillier, 45-46.
1711.—"The Garrison consists of about 250 Soldiers, at 91 Fanhams, or 1l. 2s. 9d. per Month, and 200 Topasses, or black Mungrel Portuguese, at 50, or 52 Fanhams per Month."—Lockyer, 14.
1727.—"Some Portuguese are called Topasses ... will be served by none but Portuguese Priests, because they indulge them more and their Villany."—A. Hamilton, [ed. 1744, i. 326].
1745.—"Les Portugais et les autres Catholiques qu'on nomme Mestices (see MUSTEES) et Topases, également comme les naturels du Pays y viennent sans distinction pour assister aux Divins mystères."—Norbert, ii. 31.
1747.—"The officers upon coming in report their People in general behaved very well, and could not do more than they did with such a handful of men against the Force the Enemy had, being as they believe at least to be one thousand Europeans, besides Topasses, Coffrees (see CAFFER), and Seapoys (see SEPOY), altogether about Two Thousand (2000)."—MS. Consns. at Ft. St. David, March 1. (In India Office).
1749.—"600 effective Europeans would not have cost more than that Crowd of useless Topasses and Peons of which the Major Part of our Military has of late been composed."—In A Letter to a Proprietor of the E.I. Co. p. 57.
" "The Topasses of which the major Part of the Garrison consisted, every one that knows Madrass knows it to be a black, degenerate, wretched Race of the antient Portuguese, as proud and bigotted as their Ancestors, lazy, idle, and vitious withal, and for the most Part as weak and feeble in Body as base in Mind, not one in ten possessed of any of the necessary Requisites of a Soldier."—Ibid. App. p. 103.
1756.—"... in this plight, from half an hour after eleven till near two in the morning, I sustained the weight of a heavy man, with his knees on my back, and the pressure of his whole body on my head; a Dutch sergeant, who had taken his seat {934b}upon my left shoulder, and a Topaz bearing on my right."—Holwell's Narr. of the Black Hole, [ed. 1758, p. 19].
1758.—"There is a distinction said to be made by you ... which, in our opinion, does no way square with rules of justice and equity, and that is the exclusion of Portuguese topasses, and other Christian natives, from any share of the money granted by the Nawab."—Court's Letter, in Long, 133.
c. 1785.—"Topasses, black foot soldiers, descended from Portuguese marrying natives, called topasses because they wear hats."—Carraccioli's Clive, iv. 564. The same explanation in Orme, i. 80.
1787.—"... Assuredly the mixture of Moormen, Rajahpoots, Gentoos, and Malabars in the same corps is extremely beneficial.... I have also recommended the corps of Topasses or descendants of Europeans, who retain the characteristic qualities of their progenitors."—Col. Fullarton's View of English Interests in India, 222.
1789.—"Topasses are the sons of Europeans and black women, or low Portuguese, who are trained to arms."—Munro, Narr. 321.
1817.—"Topasses, or persons whom we may denominate Indo-Portuguese, either the mixed produce of Portuguese and Indian parents, or converts to the Portuguese, from the Indian, faith."—J. Mill, Hist. iii. 19.
TOPE, s. This word is used in three quite distinct senses, from distinct origins.
a. Hind. top, 'a cannon.' This is Turkish tōp, adopted into Persian and Hindustani. We cannot trace it further. [Mr. Platts regards T. tob, top, as meaning originally 'a round mass,' from Skt. stūpa, for which see below.]
b. A grove or orchard, and in Upper India especially a mango-orchard. The word is in universal use by the English, but is quite unknown to the natives of Upper India. It is in fact Tam. tōppu, Tel. tōpu, [which the Madras Gloss. derives from Tam. togu, 'to collect,'] and must have been carried to Bengal by foreigners at an early period of European traffic. But Wilson is curiously mistaken in supposing it to be in common use in Hindustan by natives. The word used by them is bāgh.
c. An ancient Buddhist monument in the form of a solid dome. The word tōp is in local use in the N.W. Punjab, where ancient monuments of this kind occur, and appears to come from Skt. stūpa through the Pali or {935a}Prakrit thūpo. According to Sir H. Elliot (i. 505), Stupa in Icelandic signifies 'a Tower.' We cannot find it in Cleasby. The word was first introduced to European knowledge by Mr. Elphinstone in his account of the Tope of Manikyala in the Rawul Pindi district.
a.—
[1687.—"Tope." See under TOPE-KHANA.
[1884.—"The big gun near the Central Museum of Lahor called the Zam-Zamah or Bhanjianvati top, seems to have held much the same place with the Sikhs as the Malik-i-Maidán held in Bijapur."—Bombay Gazetteer, xxiii. 642.]
b.—
1673.—"... flourish pleasant Tops of Plantains, Cocoes, Guiavas."—Fryer, 40.
" "The Country is Sandy; yet plentiful in Provisions; in all places, Tops of Trees."—Ibid. 41.
1747.—"The Topes and Walks of Trees in and about the Bounds will furnish them with firewood to burn, and Clay for Bricks is almost everywhere."—Report of a Council of War at Ft. St. David, in Consns. of May 5, MS. in India Office.
1754.—"A multitude of People set to the work finished in a few days an entrenchment, with a stout mud wall, at a place called Facquire's Tope, or the grove of the Facquire."—Orme, i. 273.
1799.—"Upon looking at the Tope as I came in just now, it appeared to me, that when you get possession of the bank of the Nullah, you have the Tope as a matter of course."—Wellington, Desp. i. 23.
1809.—"... behind that a rich country, covered with rice fields and topes."—Ld. Valentia, i. 557.
1814.—"It is a general practice when a plantation of mango trees is made, to dig a well on one side of it. The well and the tope are married, a ceremony at which all the village attends, and large sums are often expended."—Forbes, Or. Mem. iii. 56.
c.—
[1839.—"Tope is an expression used for a mound or barrow as far west as Peshawer...."—Elphinstone, Caubul, 2nd ed. i. 108.]
TOPE-KHANA, s. The Artillery, Artillery Park, or Ordnance Department, Turco-Pers. tōp-khāna, 'cannon-house' or 'cannon-department.' The word is the same that appears so often in reports from Constantinople as the Tophaneh. Unless the traditions of Donna Tofana are historical, we are strongly disposed to suspect that Aqua Tofana may have had its name from this word.
1687.—"The Toptchi. These are Gunners, called so from the word Tope, which in Turkish signifies a Cannon, and are in number about 1200, distributed in 52 Chambers; their Quarters are at Tophana, or the place of Guns in the Suburbs of Constantinople."—Rycaut's Present State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 94.
1726.—"Isfandar Chan, chief of the Artillery (called the Daroger (see DAROGA) of the Topscanna)."—Valentijn, iv. (Suratte), 276.
1765.—"He and his troops knew that by the treachery of the Tope Khonnah Droger (see DAROGA), the cannon were loaded with powder only."—Holwell, Hist. Events, &c. i. 96.
TOPEE, s. A hat, Hind. ṭopī. This is sometimes referred to Port. topo, 'the top' (also tope, 'a top-knot,' and topete, a 'toupee'), which is probably identical with English and Dutch top, L. German topp, Fr. topet, &c. But there is also a simpler Hind. word ṭop, for a helmet or hat, and the quotation from the Roteiro Vocabulary seems to show that the word existed in India when the Portuguese first arrived. With the usual tendency to specialize foreign words, we find this word becomes specialized in application to the sola hat.
1498.—In the vocabulary ("Este he a linguajem de Calicut") we have: "barrete (i.e. a cap): tupy."—Roteiro, 118.
The following expression again, in the same work, seems to be Portuguese, and to refer to some mode in which the women's hair was dressed: "Trazem em a moleera huuns topetes por signall que sam Christãos."—Ibid. 52.
1849.—"Our good friend Sol came down in right earnest on the waste, and there is need of many a fold of twisted muslin round the white topi, to keep off his importunacy."—Dry Leaves from Young Egypt, 2.
1883.—"Topee, a solar helmet."—Wills, Modern Persia, 263.
TOPEEWALA, s. Hind. ṭopīwālā, 'one who wears a hat,' generally a European, or one claiming to be so. Formerly by Englishmen it was habitually applied to the dark descendants of the Portuguese. R. Drummond says that in his time (before 1808) Topeewala and Puggrywala were used in Guzerat and the Mahratta country for 'Europeans' and 'natives.' [The S. Indian form is Toppikār.] The author of the Persian Life of Hydur Naik (Or. Tr. Fund, by Miles) calls {936a}Europeans Kalāh-posh, i.e. 'hat-wearers' (p. 85).
1803.—"The descendants of the Portuguese ... unfortunately the ideas of Christianity are so imperfect that the only mode they hit upon of displaying their faith is by wearing hats and breeches."—Sydney Smith, Works, 3d. ed. iii. 5.
[1826.—"It was now evident we should have to encounter the Topee wallas."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 71.]
1874.—"... you will see that he will not be able to protect us. All topiwálás ... are brothers to each other.
TORCULL, s. This word occurs only in Castanheda. It is the Malayālam tiru-koyil, [Tam. tiru, Skt. śri, 'holy' koyil, 'temple']. See i. 253, 254; also the English Trans. of 1582, f. 151. In fact, in the 1st ed. of the 1st book of Castanheda turcoll occurs where pagode is found in subsequent editions. [Tricalore in S. Arcot is in Tam. Tirukkoyilūr, with the same meaning.]
TOSHACONNA, s. P.—H. tosha-khāna. The repository of articles received as presents, or intended to be given as presents, attached to a government-office, or great man's establishment. The tosha-khāna is a special department attached to the Foreign Secretariat of the Government of India.
[1616.—"Now indeed the atashckannoe was become a right stage."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. ii. 300.]
[1742.—"... the Treasury, Jewels, toishik-khanna ... that belonged to the Emperor...."—Fraser, H. of Nadir Shah, 173.]
1799.—"After the capture of Seringapatam, and before the country was given over to the Raja, some brass swamies (q.v.), which were in the toshekanah were given to the brahmins of different pagodas, by order of Macleod and the General. The prize-agents require payment for them."—Wellington, i. 56.
[1885.—"When money is presented to the Viceroy, he always 'remits' it, but when presents of jewels, arms, stuffs, horses, or other things of value are given him, they are accepted, and are immediately handed over to the tosh khana or Government Treasury...."—Lady Dufferin, Viceregal Life, 75.]
TOSTDAUN, s. Military Hind. tosdān for a cartouche-box. The word appears to be properly Pers. toshadān, 'provision-holder,' a wallet.
[1841.—"This last was, however, merely 'tos-dan kee awaz'—a cartouch-box report—as our sepoys oddly phrase a vague rumour."—Society in India, ii. 223.]
TOTY, s. Tam. toṭṭi, Canar. totīga, from Tam. tondu, 'to dig,' properly a low-caste labourer in S. India, and a low-caste man who in villages receives certain allowances for acting as messenger, &c., for the community, like the gorayt of N. India.
1730.—"Il y a dans chaque village un homme de service, appellé Totti, qui est chargé des impositions publiques."—Lettr. Edif. xiii. 371.
[1883.—"The name Toty being considered objectionable, the same officers in the new arrangements are called Talaiaris (see TALIAR) when assigned to Police, and Vettians when employed in Revenue duties."—Le Fanu, Man. of Salem, ii. 211.]
TOUCAN, s. This name is very generally misapplied by Europeans to the various species of Hornbill, formerly all styled Buceros, but now subdivided into various genera. Jerdon says: "They (the hornbills) are, indeed, popularly called Toucans throughout India; and this appears to be their name in some of the Malayan isles; the word signifying 'a worker,' from the noise they make." This would imply that the term did originally belong to a species of hornbill, and not to the S. American Rhamphastes or Zygodactyle. Tukang is really in Malay a 'craftsman or artificer'; but the dictionaries show no application to the bird. We have here, in fact, a remarkable instance of the coincidences which often justly perplex etymologists, or would perplex them if it were not so much their habit to seize on one solution and despise the others. Not only is tukang in Malay 'an artificer,' but, as Willoughby tells us, the Spaniards called the real S. American toucan 'carpintero' from the noise he makes. And yet there seems no doubt that Toucan is a Brazilian name for a Brazilian bird. See the quotations, and especially Thevet's, with its date.
The Toucan is described by Oviedo (c. 1535), but he mentions only the name by which "the Christians" called it,—in Ramusio's Italian Picuto (?Beccuto; Sommario, in Ramusio, iii. f. 60). [Prof. Skeat (Concise Dict. s.v.) gives only the Brazilian derivation. {937a}The question is still further discussed, without any very definite result, save that it is probably an imitation of the cry of the bird, in N. & Q. 9 ser. vii. 486; viii. 22, 67, 85, 171, 250.]
1556.—"Sur la coste de la marine, la plus frequẽte marchandise est le plumage d'vn oyseau, qu'ils appellent en leur langue Toucan, lequel descrivons sommairement puis qu'il vient à propos. Cest oyseau est de la grandeur d'vn pigeon.... Au reste cest oyseau est merveilleusement difforme et monstrueux, ayant le bec plus gros et plus long quasi que le reste du corps."—Les Singularitez de la France Antarticque, autrement nommée Amerique.... Par T. André Theuet, Natif d'Angoulesme, Paris, 1558, f. 91.
1648.—"Tucana sive Toucan Brasiliensibus: avis picae aut palumbi magnitudine.... Rostrum habet ingens et nonnumquam palmum longum, exterius flavam.... Mirum est autem videri possit quomodo tantilla avis tam grande rostrum ferat; sed levissimum est."—GeorgI MarcgravI de Liebstad, Hist. Rerum Natur. Brasiliae. Lib. V. cap. xv., in Hist. Natur. Brasil. Lugd. Bat. 1648, p. 217.
See also (1599) Aldrovandus, Ornitholog. lib. xii. cap. 19, where the word is given toucham.
Here is an example of misapplication to the Hornbill, though the latter name is also given:
1885.—"Soopah (in N. Canara) is the only region in which I have met with the toucan or great hornbill.... I saw the comical looking head with its huge aquiline beak, regarding me through a fork in the branch; and I account it one of the best shots I ever made, when I sent a ball ... through the head just at its junction with the handsome orange-coloured helmet which surmounts it. Down came the toucan with outspread wings, dead apparently; but when my peon Manoel raised him by the thick muscular neck, he fastened his great claws on his hand, and made the wood resound with a succession of roars more like a bull than a bird."—Gordon Forbes, Wild Life in Canara, &c. pp. 37-38.
TOWLEEA, s. Hind. tauliyā, 'a towel.' This is a corruption, however, not of the English form, but rather of the Port. toalha (Panjab N. & Q., 1885, ii. 117).
TRAGA, s. [Molesworth gives "S. trāgā, Guz. trāgu"; trāga does not appear in Monier-Williams's Skt. Dict., and Wilson queries the word as doubtful. Dr. Grierson writes: "I cannot trace its origin back to Skt. One is tempted to connect it with the Skt. root trai, or trā, 'to protect,' but the termination gā presents difficulties {937b}which I cannot get over. One would expect it to be derived from some Skt. word like trāka, but no such word exists."] The extreme form of dhurna (q.v.) among the Rājputs and connected tribes, in which the complainant puts himself, or some member of his family, to torture or death, as a mode for bringing vengeance on the oppressor. The tone adopted by some persons and papers at the time of the death of the great Charles Gordon, tended to imply their view that his death was a kind of traga intended to bring vengeance on those who had sacrificed him. [For a case in Greece, see Pausanias, X. i. 6. Another name for this self-sacrifice is Chandi, which is perhaps Skt. ćaṇḍa, 'passionate' (see Malcolm, Cent. India, 2nd ed. ii. 137). Also compare the jūhar of the Rājputs (Tod, Annals, Calcutta reprint, i. 74). And for Kūr, see As. Res. iv. 357 seqq.]
1803.—A case of traga is recorded in Sir Jasper Nicoll's Journal, at the capture of Gawilgarh, by Sir A. Wellesley. See note to Wellington, ed. 1837, ii. 387.
1813.—"Every attempt to levy an assessment is succeeded by the Tarakaw, a most horrid mode of murdering themselves and each other."—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 91; [2nd ed. i. 378; and see i. 244].
1819.—For an affecting story of Traga, see Macmurdo, in Bo. Lit. Soc. Trans. i. 281.
[TRANKEY, s. A kind of boat used in the Persian Gulf and adjoining seas. All attempts to connect it with any Indian or Persian word have been unsuccessful. It has been supposed to be connected with the Port. trincador, a sort of flat-bottomed coasting vessel with a high stern, and with trinquart, a herring-boat used in the English Channel. Smyth (Sailor's Word-book, s.v.) has: "Trankeh or Trankies, a large boat of the Gulf of Persia." See N. & Q. 8 ser. vii. 167, 376.
[1554.—"He sent certain spies who went in Terranquims dressed as fishermen who caught fish inside the straits."—Couto, Dec. VI. Bk. x. ch. 20.
[c. 1750.—"... he remained some years in obscurity, till an Arab tranky being driven in there by stress of weather, he made himself known to his countrymen...."—Grose, 1st ed. 25.
[1753.—"Taghi Khan ... soon after embarked a great number of men in small vessels." In the note tarranquins.—Hanway, iv. 181.
[1773.—"Accordingly we resolved to hire one of the common, but uncomfortable vessels of the Gulph, called a Trankey...."—Ives, 203.]
TRANQUEBAR, n.p. A seaport of S. India, which was in the possession of the Danes till 1807, when it was taken by England. It was restored to the Danes in 1814, and purchased from them, along with Serampore, in 1845. The true name is said to be Tarangam-bāḍi, 'Sea-Town' or 'Wave-Town'; [so the Madras Gloss.; but in the Man. (ii. 216) it is interpreted 'Street of the Telegu people.']
1610.—"The members of the Company have petitioned me, that inasmuch as they do much service to God in their establishment at Negapatam, both among Portuguese and natives, and that there is a settlement of newly converted Christians who are looked after by the catechumens of the parish (freguezia) of Trangabar...."—King's Letter, in Livros das Monções, p. 285.
[1683-4.—"This Morning the Portuguez ship that came from Vizagapatam Sailed hence for Trangambar."—Pringle, Diary, Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. iii. 16.]
TRAVANCORE, n.p. The name of a village south of Trevandrum, from which the ruling dynasty of the kingdom which is known by the name has been called. The true name is said to be Tiru-vidān-koḍu, shortened to Tiruvānkoḍu. [The Madras Gloss. gives Tiruvitānkūr, tiru, Skt. śrī, 'the goddess of prosperity,' vāzhu, 'to reside,' kūr, 'part.']
[1514.—"As to the money due from the Raja of Travamcor...."—Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 270.]
1553.—"And at the place called Travancor, where this Kingdom of Coulam terminates, there begins another Kingdom, taking its name from this very Travancor, the king of which our people call the Rey Grande, because he is greater in his dominion, and in the state which he keeps, than those other princes of Malabar; and he is subject to the King of Narsinga."—Barros, I. ix. 1.
1609.—"The said Governor has written to me that most of the kings adjacent to our State, whom he advised of the coming of the rebels, had sent replies in a good spirit, with expressions of friendship, and with promises not to admit the rebels into their ports, all but him of Travancor, from whom no answer had yet come."—King of Spain's Letter, in Livros das Monções, p. 257.
TRIBENY, n.p. Skt. tri-veṇī, 'threefold braid'; a name which properly belongs to Prayāga {938b}(Allahābād), where the three holy rivers, Ganges, Jumna, and (unseen) Sarasvatī are considered to unite. But local requirements have instituted another Tribeṇī in the Ganges Delta, by bestowing the name of Jumna and Sarasvatī on two streams connected with the Hugli. The Bengal Tribeni gives name to a village, which is a place of great sanctity, and to which the melas or religious fairs attract many visitors.
1682.—"... if I refused to stay there he would certainly stop me again at Trippany some miles further up the River."—Hedges, Diary, Oct. 14; [Hak. Soc. i. 38].
1705.—"... pendant la Lune de Mars ... il arrive la Fête de Tripigny, c'est un Dieu enfermé dans une maniere de petite Mosquée, qui est dans le milieu d'une tres-grande pleine ... au bord du Gange."—Luillier, 69.
1753.—"Au-dessous de Nudia, à Tripini, dont le nom signifie trois eaux, le Gange fait encore sortir du même côte un canal, qui par sa rentrée, forme une seconde île renfermée dans la première."—D'Anville, 64.
TRICHIES, TRITCHIES, s. The familiar name of the cheroots made at Trichinopoly; long, and rudely made, with a straw inserted at the end for the mouth. They are (or were) cheap and coarse, but much liked by those used to them. Mr. C. P. Brown, referring to his etymology of Trichinopoly under the succeeding article, derives the word cheroot from the form of the name which he assigns. But this, like his etymology of the place-name, is entirely wrong (see CHEROOT). Some excellent practical scholars seem to be entirely without the etymological sense.
1876.—"Between whiles we smoked, generally Manillas, now supplanted by foul Dindiguls and fetid Trichies."—Burton, Sind Revisited, i. 7.
TRICHINOPOLY, n.p. A district and once famous rock-fort of S. India. The etymology and proper form of the name has been the subject of much difference. Mr. C. P. Brown gives the true name as Chiruta-paḷḷi, 'Little-Town.' But this may be safely rejected as mere guess, inconsistent with facts. The earliest occurrence of the name on an inscription is (about 1520) as Tiru-śśilla-paḷḷi, apparently 'Holy-rock-town.' In the Tevāram the place is said to be mentioned under the name {939a}of Sirapalli. Some derive it from Tri-sira-puram, 'Three-head-town,' with allusion to a 'three-headed demon.' [The Madras Gloss. gives Tiruććināppalli, tiru, 'holy,' shina, 'the plant cissampelos pareira, L. palli, 'village.']
1677.—"Tritchenapali."—A. Bassing, in Valentijn, v. (Ceylon), 300.
1741.—"The Maratas concluded the campaign by putting this whole Peninsula under contribution as far as C. Cumerim, attacking, conquering, and retaining the city of Tiruxerapali, capital of Madura, and taking prisoner the Nabab who governed it."—Report of the Port. Viceroy, in Bosquejo das Possessões, &c., Documentos, ed. 1853, iii. 19.
1753.—"Ces embouchûres sont en grand nombre, vû la division de ce fleuve en différens bras ou canaux, à remonter jusqu'à Tirishirapali, et à la pagode de Shirangham."—D'Anville, 115.
1761.—"After the battle Mahommed Ali Khan, son of the late nabob, fled to Truchinapolli, a place of great strength."—Complete Hist. of the War in India, 1761, p. 3.
TRINCOMALEE, n.p. A well-known harbour on the N.E. coast of Ceylon. The proper name is doubtful. It is alleged to be Tirukko-nātha-malai, or Taranga-malai. The last ('Sea-Hill') seems conceived to fit our modern pronunciation, but not the older forms. It is perhaps Tri-kona-malai, for 'Three-peak Hill.' There is a shrine of Siva on the hill, called Trikoneśwara; [so the Madras Man. (ii. 216)].
1553.—"And then along the coast towards the north, above Baticalou, there is the kingdom of Triquinamalé."—Barros, II. ii. cap. 1.
1602.—"This Prince having departed, made sail, and was driven by the winds unknowing whither he went. In a few days he came in sight of a desert island (being that of Ceilon), where he made the land at a haven called Preaturé, between Triquillimalé and the point of Jafanapatam."—Couto, V. i. 5.
1672.—"Trinquenemale hath a surpassingly fine harbour, as may be seen from the draught thereof, yea one of the best and largest in all Ceylon, and better sheltered from the winds than the harbours of Belligamme, Gale, or Colombo."—Baldaeus, 413.
1675.—"The Cinghalese themselves oppose this, saying that they emigrated from another country ... that some thousand years ago, a Prince of great piety, driven out of the land of Tanassery ... came to land near the Hill of Tricoenmale with 1800 or 2000 men...."—Ryklof van Goens, in Valentijn (Ceylon), 210.
1685.—"Triquinimale...."—Ribeyro, Fr. Tr. 6.
1726.—"Trinkenemale, properly Tricoenmale" (i.e. Trikunmalê).—Valentijn (Ceylon), 19.
" "Trinkemale...."—Ibid. 103.
1727.—"... that vigilant Dutchman was soon after them with his Fleet, and forced them to fight disadvantageously in Trankamalaya Bay, wherein the French lost one half of their Fleet, being either sunk or burnt."—A. Hamilton, i. 343, [ed. 1744].
1761.—"We arrived at Trinconomale in Ceylone (which is one of the finest, if not ye best and most capacious Harbours in ye World) the first of November, and employed that and part of the ensuing Month in preparing our Ships for ye next Campaign."—MS. Letter of James Rennell, Jan. 31.
TRIPANG, s. The sea-slug. This is the Malay name, trīpang, tĕrīpang. See SWALLOW, and BECHE-DE-MER.
[1817.—"Bich de mar is well known to be a dried sea slug used in the dishes of the Chinese; it is known among the Malayan Islands by the name of Tripang...."—Raffles, H. of Java, 2nd ed. i. 232.]
TRIPLICANE, n.p. A suburb of Fort St. George; the part where the palace of the "Nabob of the Carnatic" is. It has been explained, questionably, as Tiru-valli-kēḍi, 'sacred-creeper-tank.' Seshagiri Sastri gives it as Tiru-alli-kēni, 'sacred lily- (Nymphaea rubea) tank,' [and so the Madras Gloss. giving the word as Tiruvallikkéni.]
1674.—"There is an absolute necessity to go on fortifying this place in the best manner we can, our enemies at sea and land being within less than musket shot, and better fortified in their camp at Trivelicane than we are here."—Ft. St. Geo. Consns. Feb. 2. In Notes and Exts., Madras, 1871, No. I. p. 28.
1679.—"The Didwan (Dewaun) from Conjeveram, who pretends to have come from Court, having sent word from Treplicane that unless the Governor would come to the garden by the river side to receive the Phyrmaund he would carry it back to Court again, answer is returned that it hath not been accustomary for the Governours to go out to receive a bare Phyrmaund except there come therewith a Serpow (see SEERPAW) or a Tasheriff" (see TASHREEF).—Do., do., Dec. 2. Ibid. 1873, No. III. p. 40.
[1682-4.—"Triblicane, Treblicane Trivety."—Diary Ft. St. Geo. ed. Pringle, i. 63; iii. 154.]
TRIVANDRUM, n.p. The modern capital of the State now known as Travancore (q.v.) Properly Tiru-(v)anantā-puram, 'Sacred Vishnu-Town.'
TRUMPÁK, n.p. This is the name by which the site of the native suburb of the city of Ormus on the famous island of that name is known. The real name is shown by Lt. Stiffe's account of that island (Geogr. Mag. i. 13) to have been Tūrūn-bāgh, 'Garden of Tūrūn,' and it was properly the palace of the old Kings, of whom more than one bore the name of Tūrūn or Tūrūn Shāh.
1507.—"When the people of the city saw that they were so surrounded, that from no direction could water be brought, which was what they felt most of all, the principal Moors collected together and went to the king desiring him earnestly to provide a guard for the pools of Turumbaque, which were at the head of the island, lest the Portuguese should obtain possession of them...."—Comment. of Alboquerque, E.T. by Birch, i. 175.
" "Meanwhile the Captain-Major ordered Afonso Lopes de Costa and João da Nova, and Manuel Teles with his people to proceed along the water's edge, whilst he with all the rest of the force would follow, and come to a place called Turumbaque, which is on the water's edge, in which there were some palm-trees, and wells of brackish water, which supplied the people of the city with drink when the water-boats were not arriving, as sometimes happened owing to a contrary wind."—Correa, i. 830.
1610.—"The island has no fresh water ... only in Torunpaque, which is a piece of white salt clay, at the extremity of the island, there is a well of fresh water, of which the King and the Wazir take advantage, to water the gardens which they have there, and which produce perfectly everything which is planted."—Teixeira, Rel. de los Reyes de Harmuz, 115.
1682.—"Behind the hills, to the S.S.W. and W.S.W. there is another part of the island, lying over against the anchorage that we have mentioned, and which includes the place called Turumbake ... here one sees the ancient pleasure-house of the old Kings of Ormus, with a few small trees, and sundry date-palms. There are also here two great wells of water, called after the name of the place, 'The Wells of Turumbake'; which water is the most wholesome and the freshest in the whole island."—Nieuhof, Zee en Lant-Reize, ii. 86.
TUAN, s. Malay tuan and tuwan, 'lord, master.' The word is used in the English and Dutch settlements of the Archipelago exactly as sahib is in India. [An early Chinese form of the word is referred to under SUMATRA.]
1553.—"Dom Paulo da Gama, who was a worthy son of his father in his zeal to do the King good service ... equipped a good fleet, of which the King of Ugentana {940b}(see UJUNGTANAH) had presently notice, who in all speed set forth his own, consisting of 30 lancharas, with a large force on board, and in command of which he put a valiant Moor called Tuam-bár, to whom the King gave orders that as soon as our force had quitted the fortress (of Malacca) not leaving enough people to defend it, he should attack the town of the Queleys (see KLING) and burn and destroy as much as he could."—Correa, iii. 486.
1553.—"For where this word Raja is used, derived from the kingly title, it attaches to a person on whom the King bestows the title, almost as among us that of Count, whilst the style Tuam is like our Dom; only the latter of the two is put before the person's proper name, whilst the former is put after it, as we see in the names of these two Javanese, Vtimuti Raja, and Tuam Colascar."—Barros, II. vi. 3.
[1893.—"... the cooly talked over the affairs of the Tuan Ingris (English gentleman) to a crowd of natives."—W. B. Worsfold, A Visit to Java, 145.]
TUCKA, s. Hind. ṭakā, Beng. ṭākā, [Skt. ṭankaka, 'stamped silver money']. This is the word commonly used among Bengalis for a rupee. But in other parts of India it (or at least ṭakā) is used differently; as for aggregates of 4, or of 2 pice (generally in N.W.P. pānch ṭakā paisā = five ṭakā of pice, 20 pice). Compare TANGA.
[1809.—"A requisition of four tukhas, or eight pice, is made upon each shop...."—Broughton, Letters from a Mahr. Camp, ed. 1892, p. 84.]
1874.—"'... How much did my father pay for her?'
"'He paid only ten tákás.'
"I may state here that the word rupeyá, or as it is commonly written rupee or rupi, is unknown to the peasantry of Bengal, at least to Bengali Hindu peasants; the word they invariably use is táká."—Govinda Samanta, i. 209.
TUCKÁVEE, s. Money advanced to a ryot by his superior to enable him to carry on his cultivation, and recoverable with his quota of revenue. It is Ar.—H. taḳāvī, from Ar. ḳavī, 'strength,' thus literally 'a reinforcement.'
[1800.—"A great many of them, who have now been forced to work as labourers, would have thankfully received tacavy, to be repaid, by instalments, in the course of two or three years."—Buchanan, Mysore, ii. 188.]
1880.—"When the Sirkar disposed of lands which reverted to it ... it sold them almost always for a nazarána (see NUZZERANA). It sometimes gave them gratis, but {941a}it never paid money, and seldom or ever advanced takávi to the tenant or owner."—Minutes of Sir T. Munro, i. 71. These words are not in Munro's spelling. The Editor has reformed the orthography.
TUCKEED, s. An official reminder. Ar.—H. tākīd, 'emphasis, injunction,' and verb tākīd karnā, 'to enjoin stringently, to insist.'
1862.—"I can hardly describe to you my life—work all day, English and Persian, scores of appeals and session cases, and a continual irritation of tukeeds and offensive remarks ... these take away all the enjoyment of doing one's duty, and make work a slavery."—Letter from Col. J. R. Becher, in (unpublished) Memoir, p. 28.
[TUCKIAH, s. Pers. takya, literally 'a pillow or cushion'; but commonly used in the sense of a hut or hermitage occupied by a fakīr or holy man.
[1800.—"He declared ... that two of the people charged ... had been at his tuckiah."—Wellington, Desp. i. 78.
[1847.—"In the centre of the wood was a Faqir's Talkiat (sic) or Place of Prayer, situated on a little mound."—Mrs. Mackenzie, Life in the Mission, &c. ii. 47.]
TULWAUR, s. Hind. talwār and tarwār, 'a sabre.' Williams gives Skt. taravāri and tarabālika. ["Talwār is a general term applied to shorter or more or less curved side-arms, while those that are lighter and shorter still are often styled nimchas" (Sir W. Elliot, in Ind. Antiq. xv. 29). Also see Egerton, Handbook, 138.]
[1799.—"... Ahmood Sollay ... drew his tolwa on one of them."—Jackson, Journey from India, 49.
[1829.—"... the panchās huzār turwar Rahtorān, meaning the 'fifty thousand Rahtore swords,' is the proverbial phrase to denote the muster of Maroo...."—Tod, Annals, Calcutta reprint, ii. 179.]
1853.—"The old native officer who carried the royal colour of the regiments was cut down by a blow of a Sikh tulwar."—Oakfield, ii. 78.
TUMASHA, s. An entertainment, a spectacle (in the French sense), a popular excitement. It is Ar. tamāshi, 'going about to look at anything entertaining.' The word is in use in Turkestan (see Schuyler, below).
1610.—"Heere are also the ruines of Ranichand (qu. Ramchand's?) Castle and Houses which the Indians acknowledge for the great God, saying that he took flesh vpon him to see the Tamasha of the World."—Finch, in Purchas, i. 436.
1631.—"Hic quoque meridiem prospicit, ut spectet Thamasham id est pugnas Elephantum Leonum Buffalorum et aliarum ferarum...."—De Laet, De Imperio Magni Mogolis, 127. (For this quotation I am indebted to a communication from Mr. Archibald Constable of the Oudh and Rohilkund Railway.—Y.)
1673.—"... We were discovered by some that told our Banyan ... that two Englishmen were come to the Tomasia, or Sight...."—Fryer, 159.
1705.—"Tamachars. Ce sont des réjouissances que les Gentils font en l'honneur de quelqu'unes de leurs divinitez."—Luillier, Tab. des Matières.
1840.—"Runjeet replied, 'Don't go yet; I am going myself in a few days, and then we will have burra tomacha.'"—Osborne, Court and Camp of Runjeet Singh, 120-121.
1876.—"If you told them that you did not want to buy anything, but had merely come for tomasha, or amusement, they were always ready to explain and show you everything you wished to see."—Schuyler's Turkistan, i. 176.
TUMLET, s.
TUMLOOK, n.p. A town, and anciently a sea-port and seat of Buddhist learning on the west of the Hoogly near its mouth, formerly called Tāmralipti or -lipta. It occurs in the Mahābhārata and many other Sanskrit words. "In the Dasa Kumāra and Vrihat Katha, collections of tales written in the 9th and 12th centuries, it is always mentioned as a great port of Bengal, and the seat of an active and flourishing commerce with the countries and islands of the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Ocean" (Prof. H. H. Wilson, in J. R. As. Soc. v. 135). [Also see Cunningham, Anct. Geog. p. 504.]
c. 150.—
"... καὶ πρὸς αὐτῷ τῷ ποταμῷ (Γάγγῃ) πολείς·
* * * *
Παλιμβοθρα βασιλειον
Ταμαλιτης."
—Ptolemy's Tables, Bk. VII. i. 73.
c. 410.—"From this, continuing to go eastward nearly 50 yôjanas, we arrive at the Kingdom of Tamralipti. Here it is the river (Ganges) empties itself into the sea. Fah Hian remained here for two years, writing out copies of the Sacred Books.... He then shipped himself on board a great merchant vessel...."—Beal, Travels of Fah Hian, &c. (1869), pp. 147-148.
[c. 1070.—"... a merchant named Harshagupta, who had arrived from Tamralipti, having heard of that event, came {942a}there full of curiosity."—Tawney, Katha Sarit Sāgara, i. 329.]
1679.—In going down the Hoogly:
"Before daybreak overtook the Ganges at Barnagur, met the Arrival 7 days out from Ballasore, and at night passed the Lilly at Tumbalee."—Ft. St. Geo. (Council on Tour). In Notes & Exts. No. II. p. 69.
1685.—"January 2.—We fell downe below Tumbolee River.
"January 3.—We anchored at the Channel Trees, and lay here ye 4th and 5th for want of a gale to carry us over to Kedgeria."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 175.
[1694.—"The Royal James and Mary ... fell on a sand on this side Tumbolee point...."—Birdwood, Report on Old Records, 90.]
1726.—"Tamboli and Banzia are two Portuguese villages, where they have their churches, and salt business."—Valentijn, v. 159.
[1753.—"Tombali." See under KEDGEREE.]
TUMTUM, s. A dog-cart. We do not know the origin. [It is almost certainly a corr. of English tandem, the slang use of which in the sense of a conveyance (according to the Stanf. Dict.) dates from 1807. Even now English-speaking natives often speak of a dog-cart with a single horse as a tandem.]
1866.—"We had only 3 coss to go, and we should have met a pair of tumtums which would have taken us on."—Trevelyan, The Dawk Bungalow, 384.
[1889.—"A G.B.T. cart once married a bathing-machine, and they called the child Tum-tum."—R. Kipling, The City of Dreadful Night, 74.]
TUNCA, TUNCAW, &c., s. P.—H. tankhwāh, pron. tankhā. Properly an assignment on the revenue of a particular locality in favour of an individual; but in its most ordinary modern sense it is merely a word for the wages of a monthly servant. For a full account of the special older uses of the word see Wilson. In the second quotation the use is obscure; perhaps it means the villages on which assignments had been granted.
1758.—"Roydoolub ... has taken the discharge of the tuncaws and the arrears of the Nabob's army upon himself."—Orme, iii.; [ii. 361].
1760.—"You have been under the necessity of writing to Mr. Holwell (who was sent to collect in the tuncars).... The low men that are employed in the tuncars are not to be depended on."—The Nawab to the Prest. and Council of Ft. Wm., in Long, 233.
1778.—"These rescripts are called tuncaws, and entitle the holder to receive to the amount from the treasuries ... as the revenues come in."—Orme, ii. 276.
[1823.—"The Grassiah or Rajpoot chiefs ... were satisfied with a fixed and known tanka, or tribute from certain territories, on which they had a real or pretended claim."—Malcolm, Cent. India, 2nd. ed. i. 385.
[1851.—"The Sikh detachments ... used to be paid by tunkhwáhs, or assignments of the provincial collectors of revenue."—Edwardes, A Year on the Punjab Frontier, i. 19.]
TURA, s. Or. Turk. tūra. This word is used in the Autobiography of Baber, and in other Mahommedan military narratives of the 16th century. It is admitted by the translators of Baber that it is rendered by them quite conjecturally, and we cannot but think that they have missed the truth. The explanation of tūr which they quote from Meninski is "reticulatus," and combining this with the manner in which the quotations show these tūra to have been employed, we cannot but think that the meaning which best suits is 'a gabion.' Sir H. Elliot, in referring to the first passage from Baber, adopts the reading tūbra, and says: "Túbras are nose-bags, but ... Badáúni makes the meaning plain, by saying that they were filled with earth (Táríkh-i-Badáúni, f. 136).... The sacks used by Sher Sháh as temporary fortifications on his march towards Rájpútána were túbras" (Elliot, vi. 469). It is evident, however, that Baber's tūras were no tobras, whilst a reference to the passage (Elliot, iv. 405) regarding Sher Shāh shows that the use of bags filled with sand on that occasion was regarded as a new contrivance. The tūbra of Badáúni may therefore probably be a misreading; whilst the use of gabions implies necessarily that they would be filled with earth.
1526.—(At the Battle of Pānipat) "I directed that, according to the custom of Rûm, the gun-carriages should be connected together with twisted bull-hides as with chains. Between every two gun-carriages were 6 or 7 tûras (or breastworks). The matchlockmen stood behind these guns and tûras, and discharged their matchlocks.... It was settled, that as Pânipat was a considerable city, it would cover one of our flanks by its buildings and houses while we might fortify our front by tûras...."—Baber, p. 304.
1528.—(At the siege of Chānderī) "overseers and pioneers were appointed to construct works on which the guns were to be planted. All the men of the army were directed to prepare tûras and scaling-ladders, and to serve the tûras which are used in attacking forts...."—Ibid. p. 376. The editor's note at the former passage is: "The meaning (viz. 'breastwork') assigned to Tûra here, and in several other places is merely conjectural, founded on Petis de la Croix's explanation, and on the meaning given by Meninski to Tûr, viz. reticulatus. The Tûras may have been formed by the branches of trees, interwoven like basket-work ... or they may have been covered defences from arrows and missiles...." Again: "These Tûras, so often mentioned, appear to have been a sort of testudo, under cover of which the assailants advanced, and sometimes breached the wall...."
TURAKA, n.p. This word is applied both in Mahratti and in Telugu to the Mahommedans (Turks). [The usual form in the inscriptions is Turushka (see Bombay Gazetteer, i. pt. i. 189).] Like this is Tarūk (see TAROUK) which the Burmese now apply to the Chinese.
TURBAN, s. Some have supposed this well-known English word to be a corruption of the P.—H. sirband, 'head-wrap,' as in the following:
1727.—"I bought a few seerbunds and sannoes there (at Cuttack) to know the difference of the prices."—A. Hamilton, i. 394 (see PIECE-GOODS).
This, however, is quite inconsistent with the history of the word. Wedgewood's suggestion that the word may be derived from Fr. turbin, 'a whelk,' is equally to be rejected. It is really a corruption of one which, though it seems to be out of use in modern Turkish, was evidently used by the Turks when Europe first became familiar with the Ottomans and their ways. This is set forth in the quotation below from Zedler's Lexicon, which is corroborated by those from Rycaut and from Galland, &c. The proper word was apparently dulband. Some modern Persian dictionaries give the only meaning of this as 'a sash.' But Meninski explains it as 'a cloth of fine white muslin; a wrapper for the head'; and Vüllers also gives it this meaning, as well as that of a 'sash or belt.'[272] In doing so he quotes {943b}Shakespear's Dict., and marks the use as 'Hindustani-Persian.' But a merely Hindustani use of a Persian word could hardly have become habitual in Turkey in the 15th and 16th centuries. The use of dulband for a turban was probably genuine Persian, adopted by the Turks. Its etymology is apparently from Arab. dul, 'volvere,' admitting of application to either a girdle or a head-wrap. From the Turks it passed in the forms Tulipant, Tolliban, Turbant, &c., into European languages. And we believe that the flower tulip also has its name from its resemblance to the old Ottoman turban, [a view accepted by Prof. Skeat (Concise Dict. s.v. tulip, turban)].[273]
1487.—"... tele bambagine assai che loro chiamano turbanti; tele assai colla salda, che lor chiamano sexe (sash)...."—Letter on presents from the Sultan to L. de' Medici, in Roscoe's Lorenzo, ed. 1825, ii. 371-72.
c. 1490.—"Estradiots sont gens comme Genetaires: vestuz, à pied et à cheval, comme les Turcs, sauf la teste, où ils ne portent ceste toille qu'ils appellent tolliban, et sont durs gens, et couchent dehors tout l'an et leurs chevaulx."—Ph. de Commynes, Liv. VIII. ch. viii. ed. Dupont (1843), ii. 456.
c. 1610.—"... un gros turban blanc à la Turque."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 98; [Hak. Soc. i. 132 and 165].
1611.—Cotgrave's French Dict. has: "Toliban: m. A Turbant or Turkish hat.
"Tolopan, as Turbant.
"Turban: m. A Turbant; a Turkish hat, of white and fine linnen wreathed into a rundle; broad at the bottom to enclose the head, and lessening, for ornament, towards the top."
1615.—"... se un Cristiano fosse trovato con turbante bianco in capo, sarebbe perciò costretto o a rinegare o a morire. Questo turbante poi lo portano Turchi, di varie forme."—P. della Valle, i. 96.
1615.—"The Sultan of Socotora ... his clothes are Surat Stuffes, after the Arabs manner ... a very good Turbant, but bare footed."—Sir T. Roe, [Hak. Soc. i. 32].
" "Their Attire is after the Turkish fashion, Turbants only excepted, insteed whereof they have a kind of Capp, rowled about with a black Turbant."—De Monfart, 5.
1619.—"Nel giorno della qual festa tutti Persiani più spensierati, e fin gli uomini grandi, e il medesimo rè, si vestono in abito succinto all uso di Mazanderan; e con certi berrettini, non troppo buoni, in testa, perchè i turbanti si guasterebbono e sarebbero di troppo impaccio...."—P. della Valle, ii. 31; [Hak. Soc. comp. i. 43].
1630.—"Some indeed have sashes of silke and gold, tulipanted about their heads...."—Sir T. Herbert, p. 128.
" "His way was made by 30 gallant young gentlemen vested in crimson saten; their Tulipants were of silk and silver wreath'd about with cheynes of gold."—Ibid. p. 139.
1672.—"On the head they wear great Tulbands (Tulbande) which they touch with the hand when they say salam to any one."—Baldaeus (Germ. version), 33.
" "Trois Tulbangis venoient de front après luy, et ils portoient chascun un beau tulban orné et enrichy d'aigrettes."—Journ. d'Ant. Galland, i. 139.
1673.—"The mixture of Castes or Tribes of all India are distinguished by the different Modes of binding their Turbats."—Fryer, 115.
1674.—"El Tanadar de un golpo cortò las repetidas bueltas del turbante a un Turco, y la cabeça asta la mitad, de que cayò muerte."—Faria y Sousa, Asia Port. ii. 179-180.
" "Turbant, a Turkish hat," &c.—Glossographia, or a Dictionary interpreting the Hard Words of whatsoever language, now used in our refined English Tongue, &c., the 4th ed., by T.E., of the Inner Temple, Esq. In the Savoy, 1674.
1676.—"Mahamed Alibeg returning into Persia out of India ... presented Cha-Sefi the second with a Coco-nut about the bigness of an Austrich-egg ... there was taken out of it a Turbant that had 60 cubits of calicut in length to make it, the cloath being so fine that you could hardly feel it."—Tavernier, E.T. p. 127; [ed. Ball, ii. 7].
1687.—In a detail of the high officers of the Sultan's Court we find:
"5. The Tulbentar Aga, he that makes up his Turbant."
A little below another personage (apparently) is called Tulban-oghlani ('The Turban Page')—Ricaut, Present State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 14.
1711.—"Their common Dress is a piece of blew Callico, wrap'd in a Role round their Heads for a Turbat."—Lockyer, 57.
1745.—"The Turks hold the Sultan's Turban in honour to such a degree that they hardly dare touch it ... but he himself has, among the servants of his privy chamber, one whose special duty it is to adjust his Turban, or head-tire, and who is thence called Tulbentar or Dulbentar Aga, or Dulbendar Aga, also called by some Dulbend Oghani (Oghlani), or Page of the Turban."—Zedler, Universal Lexicon, s.v.
c. 1760.—"They (the Sepoys) are chiefly armed in the country manner, with sword and target, and wear the Indian dress, the turbant, the cabay (Cabaya) or vest, and long drawers."—Grose, i. 39.
1843.—"The mutiny of Vellore was caused by a slight shown to the Mahomedan turban; the mutiny of Bangalore by disrespect said to have been shown to a Mahomedan place of worship."—Macaulay, Speech on Gates of Somnauth.
TURKEY, s. This fowl is called in Hindustani perū, very possibly an indication that it came to India, perhaps first to the Spanish settlements in the Archipelago, across the Pacific, as the red pepper known as Chili did. In Tamil the bird is called vān-kōṛi, 'great fowl.' Our European names of it involve a complication of mistakes and confusions. We name it as if it came from the Levant. But the name turkey would appear to have been originally applied to another of the Pavonidae, the guinea-fowl, Meleagris of the ancients. Minsheu's explanations (quoted below) show strange confusions between the two birds. The French coq d'Inde or Dindon points only ambiguously to India, but the German Calecutische Hahn and the Dutch Kalkoen (from Calicut) are specific in error as indicating the origin of the Turkey in the East. This misnomer may have arisen from the nearly simultaneous discovery of America and of the Cape route to Calicut, by Spain and Portugal respectively. It may also have been connected with the fact that Malabar produced domestic fowls of extraordinary size. Of these Ibn Batuta (quoted below) makes quaint mention. Zedler's great German Lexicon of Universal Knowledge, a work published as late as 1745, says that these birds (turkeys) were called Calecutische and Indische because they were brought by the Portuguese from the Malabar coast. Dr. Caldwell cites a curious disproof of the antiquity of certain Tamil verses from their containing a simile of which the turkey forms the subject. And {945a}native scholars, instead of admitting the anachronism, have boldly maintained that the turkey had always been found in India (Dravidian Gramm. 2nd ed. p. 137). Padre Paolino was apparently of the same opinion, for whilst explaining that the etymology of Calicut is "Castle of the Fowls," he asserts that Turkeys (Galli d'India) came originally from India; being herein, as he often is, positive and wrong. In 1615 we find W. Edwards, the E.I. Co.'s agent at Ajmir, writing to send the Mogul "three or four Turkey cocks and hens, for he hath three cocks but no hens" (Colonial Paper, E. i. c. 388). Here, however, the ambiguity between the real turkey and the guinea-fowl may possibly arise. In Egypt the bird is called Dik-Rūmī, 'fowl of Rūm' (i.e. of Turkey), probably a rendering of the English term.
c. 1347.—"The first time in my life that I saw a China cock was in the city of Kaulam. I had at first taken it for an ostrich, and I was looking at it with great wonder, when the owner said to me, 'Pooh! there are cocks in China much bigger than that!' and when I got there I found that he had said no more than the truth."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 257.
c. 1550.—"One is a species of peacock that has been brought to Europe, and commonly called the Indian fowl."—Girolamo Benzoni, 148.
1627.—"Turky Cocke, or cocke of India, avis ita dicta, quod ex Africa, et vt nonulli volunt alii, ex India vel Arabia ad nos allata sit. B. Indische haen. T. Indianisch hun, Calecuttisch hun.... H. Pavon de las Indias. G. Poulle d'Inde. H. 2. Gallepauo. L. Gallo-pauo, quod de vtriusque natura videtur participare ... aves Numidicae, à Numidia, Meleagris ... à μέλας, i. niger, and ἄγρος, ager, quod in Æthiopia praecipuè inveniuntur.
"A Turkie, or Ginnie Henne ... I. Gallina d'India. H. Galina Morisca. G. Poulle d'Inde. L. Penélope. Auis Pharaonis. Meleágris....
* * * * *
"A Ginnie cocke or hen: ex Guinea, regione Indica ... vnde fuerunt priùs ad alias regiones transportati. vi. Turkie-cocke or hen."—Minsheu's Guide into Tongues (2d edition).
1623.—"33. Gallus Indicus, aut Turcicus (quem vocant), gallinacei aevum parum superat; iracundus ales, et carnibus valde albis."—Bacon, Hist. Vitae et Mortis, in Montague's ed. x. 140.
1653.—"Les François appellent coq-d'Inde vn oyseau lequel ne se trouue point aux Indes Orientales, les Anglois le nomment {945b}turki-koq qui signifie coq de Turquie, quoy qu'il n'y ait point d'autres en Turquie que ceux que l'on y a portez d'Europe. Ie croy que cet oyseau nous est venu de l'Amerique."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 259.
1750-52.—"Some Germans call the turkeys Calcutta hens; for this reason I looked about for them here, and to the best of my remembrance I was told they were foreign."—Olof Toreen, 199-200. We do not know whether the mistake of Calcutta for Calicut belongs to the original author or to the translator—probably to the proverbial traditore.
TURNEE, TUNNEE, s. An English supercargo, Sea-Hind., and probably a corruption of attorney. (Roebuck).
TURPAUL, s. Sea-Hind. A tarpaulin (ibid.). [The word (tārpāl) has now come into common native use.]
TUSSAH, TUSSER, s. A kind of inferior silk, the tissues of which are now commonly exported to England. Anglo-Indians generally regard the termination of this word in r as a vulgarism, like the use of solar for sola (q.v.); but it is in fact correct. For though it is written by Milburn (1813) tusha, and tusseh (ii. 158, 244), we find it in the Āīn-i-Akbarī as tassar, and in Dr. Buchanan as tasar (see below). The term is supposed to be adopted from Skt. tasara, trasara, Hind. tasar, 'a shuttle'; perhaps from the form of the cocoon? The moth whose worm produced this silk is generally identified with Antheraea paphia, but Capt. Hutton has shown that there are several species known as tasar worms. These are found almost throughout the whole extent of the forest tracts of India. But the chief seat of the manufacture of stuffs, wholly or partly of tasar silk, has long been Bhāgalpur on the Ganges. [See also Allen, Mon. on Silk Cloths of Assam, 1899; Yusuf Ali, Silk Fabrics of N.W.P., 1900.] The first mention of tasar in English reports is said to be that by Michael Atkinson of Jangīpūr, as cited below in the Linnæan Transactions of 1804 by Dr. Roxburgh (see Official Report on Sericulture in India, by J. Geoghegan, Calcutta, 1872), [and the elaborate article in Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. iii. 96 seqq.].
c. 1590.—"Tassar, per piece ... ⅓ to 2 Rupees."—Āīn, i. 94.
[1591.—See the account by Rumphius, quoted by Watt, loc. cit. p. 99.]
1726.—"Tessersse ... 11 ells long and 2 els broad...."—Valentijn, v. 178.
1796.—"... I send you herewith for Dr. Roxburgh a specimen of Bughy Tusseh silk.... There are none of the Palma Christi species of Tusseh to be had here.... I have heard that there is another variation of the Tusseh silk-worm in the hills near Bauglipoor."—Letter of M. Atkinson, as above, in Linn. Trans., 1804, p. 41.
1802.—"They (the insects) are found in such abundance over many parts of Bengal and the adjoining provinces as to have afforded to the natives, from time immemorial, an abundant supply of a most durable, coarse, dark-coloured silk, commonly called Tusseh silk, which is woven into a cloth called Tusseh doot'hies, much worn by Bramins and other sects of Hindoos."—Roxburgh, Ibid. 34.
c. 1809.—"The chief use to which the tree (Terminalia elata, or Asan) is however applied, is to rear the Tasar silk."—Buchanan, Eastern India, ii. 157 seqq.
[1817.—"A thick cloth, called tusuru, is made from the web of the gootee insect in the district of Veerbhoomee."—Ward, Hindoos, 2d ed. i. 85.]
1876.—"The work of the Tussur silk-weavers has so fallen off that the Calcutta merchants no longer do business with them."—Sat. Rev., 14 Oct., p. 468.
TUTICORIN, n.p. A sea-port of Tinnevelly, and long the seat of pearl-fishery, in Tamil Tūttukkuḍi, [which the Madras Gloss. derives from Tam. tūttu, 'to scatter,' kudi, 'habitation']. According to Fra Paolino the name is Tutukodi, 'a place where nets are washed,' but he is not to be trusted. Another etymology alleged is from turu, 'a bush.' But see Bp. Caldwell below.
1544.—"At this time the King of Cape Comorin, who calls himself the Great King (see TRAVANCORE), went to war with a neighbour of his who was king of the places beyond the Cape, called Manapá and Totucury, inhabited by the Christians that were made there by Miguel Vaz, Vicar General of India at the time."—Correa, iv. 403.
1610.—"And the said Captain and Auditor shall go into residence every three years, and to him shall pertain all the temporal government, without any intermeddling therein of the members of the Company ... nor shall the said members (religiosos) compel any of the Christians to remain in the island unless it is their voluntary choice to do so, and such as wish it may live at Tuttucorim."—King's Letter, in L. das Monções, 386.
1644.—"The other direction in which the residents of Cochim usually go for their trading purchases is to Tutocorim, on the Fishery Coast (Costa da Pescaria), which gets that name from the pearl which is fished there."—Bocarro, MS.
[c. 1660.—"... musk and porcelain from China, and pearls from Beharen (Bahrein), and Tutucoury, near Ceylon...."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 204.]
1672.—"The pearls are publicly sold in the market at Tutecoryn and at Cailpatnam.... The Tutecorinish and Manaarish pearls are not so good as those of Persia and Ormus, because they are not so free from water or so white."—Baldaeus (Germ. ed.), 145.
1673.—"... Tutticaree, a Portugal Town in time of Yore."—Fryer, 49.
[1682.—"The Agent having notice of an Interloper lying in Titticorin Bay, immediately sent for ye Councell to consult about it."—Pringle, Diary Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. i. 69.]
1727.—"Tutecareen has a good safe harbour.... This colony superintends a Pearl-Fishery ... which brings the Dutch Company 20,000L. yearly Tribute."—A. Hamilton, i. 334; [ed. 1744, i. 336].
1881.—"The final n in Tuticorin was added for some such euphonic reason as turned Kochchi into Cochin and Kumari into Comorin. The meaning of the name Tūttukkuḍi is said to be 'the town where the wells get filled up'; from tūttu (properly tūrttu), 'to fill up a well,' and kuḍi, 'a place of habitation, a town.' This derivation, whether the true one or not, has at least the merit of being appropriate...."—Bp. Caldwell, Hist. of Tinnevelly, 75.
TYCONNA, TYEKANA, s. A room in the basement or cellarage, or dug in the ground, in which it has in some parts of India been the practice to pass the hottest part of the day during the hottest season of the year. Pers. tah-khāna, 'nether-house,' i.e. 'subterraneous apartment.' ["In the centre of the court is an elevated platform, the roof of a subterraneous chamber called a zeera zemeon, whither travellers retire during the great heats of the summer" (Morier, Journey through Persia, &c., 81). Another name for such a place is sardābeh (Burton, Ar. Nights, i. 314).]
1663.—"... in these hot Countries, to entitle an House to the name of Good and Fair it is required it should be ... furnish'd also with good Cellars with great Flaps to stir the Air, for reposing in the fresh Air from 12 till 4 or 5 of the Clock, when the Air of these Cellars begins to be hot and stuffing...."—Bernier, E.T. 79; [ed. Constable, 247].
c. 1763.—"The throng that accompanied that minister proved so very great that the floor of the house, which happened to have a Tah-Qhana, and possibly was at that moment under a secret influence, gave way, and the body, the Vizir, and all his company fell into the apartment underneath."—Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 19.
1842.—"The heat at Jellalabad from the end of April was tremendous, 105° to 110° in the shade. Everybody who could do so lived in underground chambers called tykhánás. Broadfoot dates a letter 'from my den six feet under ground.'"—Mrs. Mackenzie, Storms and Sunshine of a Soldier's Life, i. 298. [The same author in her Life in the Mission (i. 330) writes taikhana.]
TUXALL, TAKSAUL, s. The Mint. Hind. ṭaksāl, from Skt. ṭankaśālā, 'coin-hall.'
[1757.—"Our provisions were regularly sent us from the Dutch Tanksal...."—Holwell's Narr. of Attack on Calcutta, p. 34; in Wheeler, Early Records, 248.
[1811.—"The Ticksali, or superintendent of the mint...."—Kirkpatrick, Nepaul, 201.]
TYPHOON, s. A tornado or cyclone-wind; a sudden storm, a 'nor-wester' (q.v.). Sir John Barrow (see Autobiog. 57) ridicules "learned antiquarians" for fancying that the Chinese took typhoon from the Egyptian Typhon, the word being, according to him, simply the Chinese syllables, ta-fung, 'Great Wind.' His ridicule is misplaced. With a monosyllabic language like the Chinese (as we have remarked elsewhere) you may construct a plausible etymology, to meet the requirements of the sound alone, from anything and for anything. And as there is no evidence that the word is in Chinese use at all, it would perhaps be as fair a suggestion to derive it from the English "tough 'un." Mr. Giles, who seems to think that the balance of evidence is in favour of this (Barrow's) etymology, admits a serious objection to be that the Chinese have special names for the typhoon, and rarely, if ever, speak of it vaguely as a 'great wind.' The fact is that very few words of the class used by seafaring and trading people, even when they refer to Chinese objects, are directly taken from the Chinese language. E.g. Mandarin, pagoda, chop, cooly, tutenague;—none of these are Chinese. And the probability is that Vasco and his followers got the tufão, which our sailors made into touffon and then into {947b}typhoon, as they got the monção which our sailors made into monsoon, direct from the Arab pilots.
The Arabic word is ṭūfān, which is used habitually in India for a sudden and violent storm. Lane defines it as meaning 'an overpowering rain, ... Noah's flood,' etc. And there can be little doubt of its identity with the Greek τυφῶν or τυφών. [But Burton (Ar. Nights, iii. 257) alleges that it is pure Arabic, and comes from the root ṭauf, 'going round.'] This word τυφών (the etymologists say, from τυφώ, 'I raise smoke') was applied to a demon-giant or Titan, and either directly from the etym. meaning or from the name of the Titan (as in India a whirlwind is called 'a Devil or Pisachee') to a 'waterspout,' and thence to analogous stormy phenomena. 'Waterspout' seems evidently the meaning of τυφών in the Meteorologica of Aristotle (γίγνεται μὲν οὖν τυφών ... κ.τ.λ.) iii. 1 (the passage is exceedingly difficult to render clearly); and also in the quotation which we give from Aulus Gellius. The word may have come to the Arabs either in maritime intercourse, or through the translations of Aristotle. It occurs (al-ṭūfān) several times in the Koran; thus in sura, vii. 134, for a flood or storm, one of the plagues of Egypt, and in s. xxix. 14 for the Deluge.