TALIPOT, s. The great-leaved fan-palm of S. India and Ceylon, Corypha umbraculifera, L. The name, from Skt. tāla-pattra, Hind. tālpāt, 'leaf of the tāla tree,' properly applies to the leaf of such a tree, or to the smaller leaf of the palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis), used for many purposes, e.g. for slips to write on, to make fans and umbrellas, &c. See OLLAH, PALMYRA, TALAPOIN. Sometimes we find the word used for an umbrella, but this is not common. The quotation from Jordanus, though using no name, refers to this tree. [Arrian says: "These trees were called in Indian speech tala, and there grew on them, as there grows at the tops of the palm-trees, a fruit resembling balls of wool" (Indika, vii.).]
c. 1328.—"In this India are certain trees which have leaves so big that five or six men can very well stand under the shade of one of them."—Fr. Jordanus, 29-30.
c. 1430.—"These leaves are used in this country for writing upon instead of paper, and in rainy weather are carried on the head as a covering, to keep off the wet. Three or four persons travelling together can be covered by one of these leaves stretched out." And again: "There is also a tree called tal, the leaves of which are extremely large, and upon which they write."—N. Conti, in India in the XV. Cent., 7 and 13.
1672.—"Talpets or sunshades."—Baldaeus, Dutch ed., 102.
1681.—"There are three other trees that must not be omitted. The first is Talipot...."—Knox, 15.
" "They (the priests) have the honour of carrying the Tallipot with the broad end over their heads foremost; which none but the King does."—Ibid. 74. [See TALAPOIN.]
1803.—"The talipot tree ... affords a prodigious leaf, impenetrable to sun or rain, and large enough to shelter ten men. It is a natural umbrella, and is of as eminent service in that country as a great-coat tree would be in this. A leaf of the talipot-tree is a tent to the soldier, a parasol to the traveller, and a book to the scholar."—Sydney Smith, Works, 3rd ed. iii. 15.
1874.—"... dans les embrasures ... s'étalaient des bananiers, des tallipots...."—Franz, Souvenirs d'un Cosaque, ch. iv.
1881.—"The lofty head of the talipot palm ... the proud queen of the tribe in Ceylon, towers above the scrub on every side. Its trunk is perfectly straight and white, like a slender marble column, and often more than 100 feet high. Each of the fans that compose the crown of leaves covers a semicircle of from 12 to 16 feet radius, a surface of 150 to 200 square feet."—Haeckel's Visit to Ceylon, E.T. p. 129.
TALISMAN, s. This word is used by many medieval and post-medieval writers for what we should now call a moollah, or the like, a member of the Mahommedan clergy, so to call them. It is doubtless the corruption of some Ar. term, but of what it is not easy to say. Qu. talāmiẓa, 'disciples, students'? [See Burton, Ar. Nights, ix. 165.] On this Prof. Robertson Smith writes: "I have got some fresh light on your Talisman.
"W. Bedwell, the father of English Arabists, in his Catalogue of the Chapters of the Turkish Alkoran, published (1615) along with the Mohammedis Imposturae, and Arabian Trudgman, has the following, quoted from Postellus de Orbis Concordia, i. 13: 'Haec precatio (the fātiḥa) illis est communis ut nobis dominica: et ita quibusdum ad battologiam usque recitatur ut centies idem, aut duo aut tria vocabula repetant dicendo, Alhamdu lillah, hamdu lillah, hamdu lillah, et cetera ejus vocabula eodem modo. Idque facit in publicà oratione Taalima, id est sacrificulus, pro his qui negligenter orant ut aiunt, ut ea repititione suppleat eorum erroribus.... Quidam medio in campo tam assiduè, ut defessi considant; alii circumgirando corpus,' etc.
"Here then we have a form without the s, and one which from the vowels seem to be ti'lima, 'a very learned man.' This, owing to the influence of the guttural, would sound in modern pronunciation nearly as Taalima. At the same time ti'lima is not the name of an office, and prayers on behalf of others can be undertaken by any one who receives a mandate, and is paid for them; so it is very possible that Postellus, who was an Arabic scholar, made the pointing suit his idea of the word meant, and that the real word is talāmi, a shortened {893b}form, recognised by Jawhari, and other lexicographers, of talāmidh, 'disciples.' That students should turn a penny by saying prayers for others is very natural." This, therefore, confirms our conjecture of the origin.
1338.—"They treated me civilly, and set me in front of their mosque during their Easter; at which mosque, on account of its being their Easter, there were assembled from divers quarters a number of their Cadini, i.e. of their bishops, and of their Talismani, i.e. of their priests."—Letter of Friar Pascal, in Cathay, &c., p. 235.
1471.—"In questa città è vna fossa d'acqua nel modo di vna fontana, la qual'è guardata da quelli suoi Thalassimani, cioè preti; quest'acqua dicono che ha gran vertù contra la lebra, e contra le caualette."—Giosafa Barbaro, in Ramusio, ii. f. 107.
1535.—
"Non vi sarebbe più confusione
S'a Damasco il Soldan desse l'assalto;
Un muover d'arme, un correr di persone
E di talacimanni un gridar d'alto."
Ariosto, xviii. 7.
1554.—"Talismánnos habent hominum genus templorum ministerio dicatum...."—Busbeq. Epistola. i. p. 40.
c. 1590.—"Vt Talismanni, qui sint commodius intelligatur: sciendum, certos esse gradus Mahumetanis eorum qui legum apud ipsos periti sunt, et partim jus dicunt, partim legem interpretantur. Ludovicus Bassanus Iadrensis in hunc modum comparat eos cum nostris Ecclesiasticis.... Muphtim dicit esse inter ipsos instar vel Papae nostro, vel Patriarchae Graecorum.... Huic proximi sunt Cadilescheri.... Bassanus hos cum Archiepiscopis nostris comparat. Sequuntur Cadij ... locum obtinent Episcopi. Secundum hos sunt eis Hoggiae,[262] qui seniores dicuntur, vt Graecis et nostris Presbyteri. Excipiunt Hoggias Talismani, seu Presbyteros Diaconi. Vltimi sunt Dervisii, qui Calogeris Graecorum, monachis nostris respondent. Talismani Mahumetanis ad preces interdiu et noctu quinquis excitant."—Leunclavius, Annales Sultanorum Othmanidarum, ed. 1650, 414.
1610.—"Some hauing two, some foure, some sixe adioyning turrets, exceeding high, and exceeding slender: tarrast aloft on the outside like the maine top of a ship ... from which the Talismanni with elated voices (for they vse no bels) do congregate the people...."—Sandys, p. 31.
c. 1630.—"The Fylalli converse most in the Alcoran. The Deruissi are wandering wolves in sheepes clothing. The Talismanni regard the houres of prayer by turning the 4 hour'd glasse. The Muyezini {894a}crie from the tops of Mosques, battologuizing Llala Hyllula."—Sir T. Herbert, 267; [and see ed. 1677, p. 323].
1678.—"If he can read like a Clerk a Chapter out of the Alcoran ... he shall be crowned with the honour of being a Mullah or Talman...."—Fryer, 368.
1687.—"... It is reported by the Turks that ... the victorious Sultan ... went with all Magnificent pomp and solemnity to pay his thanksgiving and devotions at the church of Sancta Sophia; the Magnificence so pleased him, that he immediately added a yearly Rent of 10,000 zechins to the former Endowments, for the maintenance of Imaums or Priests, Doctours of their Law, Talismans and others who continually attend there for the education of youth...."—Sir P. Rycaut, Present State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 54.
TĀLIYAMĀR, s. Sea-Hind. for 'cut-water.' Port. talhamar.—Roebuck.
TALLICA, s. Hind. from Ar. ta'līḳah. An invoice or schedule.
1682.—"... that he ... would send another Droga (Daroga) or Customer on purpose to take our Tallicas."—Hedges, Diary, Dec. 26; [Hak. Soc. i. 60. Also see under KUZZANNA].
TALOOK, s. This word, Ar. ta'alluḳ, from root 'alaḳ, 'to hang or depend,' has various shades of meaning in different parts of India. In S. and W. India it is the subdivision of a district, presided over as regards revenue matters by a tahseeldar. In Bengal it is applied to tracts of proprietary land, sometimes not easily distinguished from Zemindaries, and sometimes subordinate to or dependent on Zemindars. In the N.W. Prov. and Oudh the ta'alluḳ is an estate the profits of which are divided between different proprietors, one being superior, the other inferior (see TALOOKDAR). Ta'alluḳ is also used in Hind. for 'department' of administration.
1885.—"In October, 1779, the Dacca Council were greatly disturbed in their minds by the appearance amongst them of John Doe, who was then still in his prime. One Chundermonee demised to John Doe and his assigns certain lands in the pergunna Bullera ... whereupon George III., by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, and so forth, commanded the Sheriff of Calcutta to give John Doe possession. At this Mr. Shakspeare burst into fury, and in language which must have surprised John Doe, proposed 'that a sezawul be appointed for the collection of Patparrah Talook, with directions to pay the same {894b}into Bullera cutcherry.'"—Sir J. Stephen, Nuncomar and Impey, ii. 159-60. A sazãwal is "an officer specially appointed to collect the revenue of an estate, from the management of which the owner or farmer has been removed."—(Wilson).
TALOOKDĀR, s. Hind. from Pers. ta'alluḳdār, 'the holder of a ta'alluḳ' (see TALOOK) in either of the senses of that word; i.e. either a Government officer collecting the revenue of a ta'alluḳ (though in this sense it is probably now obsolete everywhere), or the holder of an estate so designated. The famous Talookdars of Oudh are large landowners, possessing both villages of which they are sole proprietors, and other villages, in which there are subordinate holders, in which the Talookdar is only the superior proprietor (see Carnegie, Kachari Technicalities).
[1769.—"... inticements are frequently employed by the Talookdars to augment the concourse to their lands."—Verelst, View of Bengal, App. 233. In his Glossary he defines "Talookdar, the Zemeen-dar of a small district."]
TAMARIND, s. The pod of the tree which takes its name from that product, Tamarindus indica, L., N.O. Leguminosae. It is a tree cultivated throughout India and Burma for the sake of the acid pulp of the pod, which is laxative and cooling, forming a most refreshing drink in fever. The tree is not believed by Dr. Brandis to be indigenous in India, but is supposed to be so in tropical Africa. The origin of the name is curious. It is Ar. tamar-u'l-Hind, 'date of India,' or perhaps rather in Persian form, tamar-i-Hindī. It is possible that the original name may have been thamar, 'fruit' of India, rather than tamar, 'date.'
1298.—"When they have taken a merchant vessel, they force the merchants to swallow a stuff called Tamarindi, mixed in sea-water, which produces a violent purging."—Marco Polo, 2nd ed., ii. 383.
c. 1335.—"L'arbre appelé ḥammar, c'est à dire al-tamar-al-Hindi, est un arbre sauvage qui couvre les montagnes."—Masālik-al-abṣar, in Not. et Ext. xiii. 175.
1563.—"It is called in Malavar puli, and in Guzerat ambili, and this is the name they have among all the other people of this India; and the Arab calls it tamarindi, because tamar, as you well know, is our tamara, or, as the Castilians say, datil [i.e. date], so that tamarindi are 'dates of {895a}India'; and this was because the Arabs could not think of a name more appropriate on account of its having stones inside, and not because either the tree or the fruit had any resemblance."—Garcia, f. 200. [Puli is the Malayāl. name; ambilii is probably Hind. imlī, Skt. amlikā, 'the tamarind.']
c. 1580.—"In febribus verò pestilentibus, atque omnibus aliis ex putridis, exurentibus, aquam, in qua multa copia Tamarindorum infusa fuerit cum saccharo ebibunt."—Prosper Alpinus (De Plantis Aegypt.) ed. Lugd. Bat. 1735, ii. 20.
1582.—"They have a great store of Tamarindos...."—Castañeda, by N.L. f. 94.
[1598.—"Tamarinde is by the Aegyptians called Derelside (qu. dār-al-sayyida, 'Our Lady's tree'?)."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. ii. 121.]
1611.—"That wood which we cut for firewood did all hang trased with cods of greene fruit (as big as a Bean-cod in England) called Tamerim; it hath a very soure tast, and by the Apothecaries is held good against the Scurvie."—N. Dounton, in Purchas, i. 277.
[1623.—"Tamarinds, which the Indians call Hambele" (imlī, as in quotation from Garcia above).—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 92.]
1829.—"A singularly beautiful Tamarind tree (ever the most graceful, and amongst the most magnificent of trees)...."—Mem. of Col. Mountain, 98.
1877.—"The natives have a saying that sleeping beneath the 'Date of Hind' gives you fever, which you cure by sleeping under a nim tree (Melia azedirachta), the lilac of Persia."—Burton, Sind Revisited, i. 92. The nim (see NEEM) (pace Capt. Burton) is not the 'lilac of Persia' (see BUCKYNE). The prejudice against encamping or sleeping under a tamarind tree is general in India. But, curiously, Bp. Pallegoix speaks of it as the practice of the Siamese "to rest and play under the beneficent shade of the Tamarind."—(Desc. du Royaume Thai ou Siam, i. 136).
TAMARIND-FISH, s. This is an excellent zest, consisting, according to Dr. Balfour, of white pomfret, cut in transverse slices, and preserved in tamarinds. The following is a note kindly given by the highest authority on Indian fish matters, Dr. Francis Day:
"My account of Tamarind fish is very short, and in my Fishes of Malabar as follows:—
"'The best Tamarind fish is prepared from the Seir fish (see SEER-FISH), and from the Lates calcarifer, known as Cockup in Calcutta; and a rather inferior quality from the Polynemus (or Roe-ball, to which genus the Mango-fish belongs), and the more common from any kind of fish.' The above refers to Malabar, and more especially to Cochin. Since I wrote my Fishes of Malabar {895b}I have made many inquiries as to Tamarind fish, and found that the white pomfret, where it is taken, appears to be the best for making the preparation."
TAMBERANEE, s. Malayāl. tam-burān, 'Lord; God, or King.' It is a title of honour among the Nairs, and is also assumed by Saiva monks in the Tamil countries. [The word is derived from Mal. tam, 'one's own,' purān, 'lord.' The junior male members of the Malayāli Rāja's family, until they come of age, are called Tambān, and after that Tamburān. The female members are similarly styled Tambaṭṭi and Tamburaṭṭi (Logan, Malabar, iii. Gloss. s.v.).]
1510.—"Dice l'altro Tamarai: zoe Per Dio? L'altro respõde Tamarani: zoe Per Dio."—Varthema, ed. 1517, f. 45.
[c. 1610.—"They (the Nairs) call the King in their language Tambiraine, meaning 'God.'"—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 357.]
TANA, TANNA, n.p. Thāna, a town on the Island of Salsette on the strait ('River of Tana') dividing that island from the mainland and 20 m. N.E. of Bombay, and in the early Middle Ages the seat of a Hindu kingdom of the Konkan (see CONCAN), as well as a seaport of importance. It is still a small port, and is the chief town of the District which bears its name.
c. 1020.—"From Dhár southwards to the river Nerbudda, nine; thence to Mahratdes ... eighteen; thence to Konkan, of which the capital is Tana, on the sea-shore, twenty-five parasangs."—Al-Birūnī, in Elliot, i. 60.
[c. 1150.—"Tanah," miswritten Banah. See under TABASHEER.]
1298.—"Tana is a great Kingdom lying towards the West.... There is much traffic here, and many ships and merchants frequent the place."—Marco Polo, Bk. III. ch. 27.
1321.—"After their blessed martyrdom, which occurred on the Thursday before Palm Sunday in Thana of India, I baptised about 90 persons in a certain city called Parocco, ten days' journey distant therefrom, and I have since baptised more than twenty, besides thirty-five who were baptised between Thana and Supera (Supara)."—Letter of Friar Jordanus, in Cathay, &c., 226.
c. 1323.—"And having thus embarked I passed over in 28 days to Tana, where for the faith of Christ four of our Minor Friars had suffered martyrdom.... The land is under the dominion of the Saracens...."—Fr. Odoric, Ibid. i. 57-58.
1516.—"25 leagues further on the coast is a fortress of the before-named king, called Tana-Mayambu" (this is perhaps rather Bombay).—Barbosa, 68.
1529.—"And because the norwest winds blew strong, winds contrary to his course, after going a little way he turned and anchored in sight of the island, where were stationed the foists with their captain-in-chief Alixa, who seeing our fleet in motion put on his oars and assembled at the River of Tana, and when the wind came round our fleet made sail, and anchored at the mouth of the River of Tana, for the wind would not allow of its entering."—Correa, iii. 290.
1673.—"The Chief City of this Island is called Tanaw; in which are Seven Churches and Colleges, the chiefest one of the Paulistines (see PAULIST).... Here are made good Stuffs of Silk and Cotton."—Fryer, 73.
TANA, THANA, s. A Police station. Hind. thāna, thānā, [Skt. sthāna, 'a place of standing, a post']. From the quotation following it would seem that the term originally meant a fortified post, with its garrison, for the military occupation of the country; a meaning however closely allied to the present use.
c. 1640-50.—"Thánah means a corps of cavalry, matchlockmen, and archers, stationed within an enclosure. Their duty is to guard the roads, to hold the places surrounding the Thánah, and to despatch provisions (rasad, see RUSSUD) to the next Thánah."—Pádisháh námah, quoted by Blochmann, in Āīn, i. 345.
TANADAR, THANADAR, s. The chief of a police station (see TANA), Hind. thānadār. This word was adopted in a more military sense at an early date by the Portuguese, and is still in habitual use with us in the civil sense.
1516.—In a letter of 4th Feb. 1515 (i.e. 1516), the King Don Manoel constitutes João Machado to be Tanadar and captain of land forces in Goa.—Archiv. Port. Orient. fasc. 5, 1-3.
1519.—"Senhor Duarte Pereira; this is the manner in which you will exercise your office of Tannadar of this Isle of Tyçoari (i.e. Goa), which the Senhor Capitão will now encharge you with."—Ibid. p. 35.
c. 1548.—"In Aguaci is a great mosque (mizquita), which is occupied by the tenadars, but which belongs to His Highness; and certain petayas, (yards?) in which bate (paddy) is collected, which also belong to His Highness."—Tombo in Subsidios, 216.
1602.—"So all the force went aboard of the light boats, and the Governor in his bastard-galley entered the river with a {896b}grand clangour of music, and when he was in mid-channel there came to his galley a boat, in which was the Tanadar of the City (Dabul), and going aboard the galley presented himself to the Governor with much humility, and begged pardon of his offences...."—Couto, IV. i. 9.
[1813.—"The third in succession was a Tandar, or petty officer of a district...."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 5.]
TANGA, s. Mahr. ṭānk, Turki tanga. A denomination of coin which has been in use over a vast extent of territory, and has varied greatly in application. It is now chiefly used in Turkestan, where it is applied to a silver coin worth about 7½d. And Mr. W. Erskine has stated that the word tanga or tanka is of Chagatai Turki origin, being derived from tang, which in that language means 'white' (H. of Baber and Humayun, i. 546). Though one must hesitate in differing from one usually so accurate, we must do so here. He refers to Josafa Barbaro, who says this, viz. that certain silver coins are called by the Mingrelians tetari, by the Greeks aspri, by the Turks akcha, and by the Zagatais tengh, all of which words in the respective languages signify 'white.' We do not however find such a word in the dictionaries of either Vambéry or of Pavet de Courteille;—the latter only having tangah, 'fer-blanc.' And the obvious derivation is the Skt. ṭaṅka, 'a weight (of silver) equal to 4 māshas ... a stamped coin.' The word in the forms ṭakā (see TUCKA) and ṭanga (for these are apparently identical in origin) is, "in all dialects, laxly used for money in general" (Wilson).
In the Lahore coinage of Mahmūd of Ghaznī, A.H. 418-419 (A.D. 1027-28), we find on the Skt. legend of the reverse the word ṭanka in correspondence with the dirham of the Ar. obverse (see Thomas, Pathan Kings, p. 49). Ṭanka or Ṭanga seems to have continued to be the popular name of the chief silver coin of the Delhi sovereigns during the 13th and first part of the 14th centuries, a coin which was substantially the same with the rupee (q.v.) of later days. In fact this application of the word in the form ṭakā (see TUCKA) is usual in Bengal down to our own day. Ibn Batuta indeed, who was in India in the time of Mahommed Tughlak, {897a}1333-1343 or thereabouts, always calls the gold coin then current a tanka or dīnār of gold. It was, as he repeatedly states, the equivalent of 10 silver dīnārs. These silver dīnārs (or rupees) are called by the author of the Masālik-al-Abṣār (c. 1340) the "silver tanka of India." The gold and silver tanka continue to be mentioned repeatedly in the history of Feroz Shāh, the son of Mahommed (1351-1388), and apparently with the same value as before. At a later period under Sikandar Buhlol (1488-1517), we find black (or copper) tankas, of which 20 went to the old silver tanka.
We cannot say when the coin, or its name rather, first appeared in Turkestan.
But the name was also prevalent on the western coast of India as that of a low denomination of coin, as may be seen in the quotations from Linschoten and Grose. Indeed the name still survives in Goa as that of a copper coin equivalent to 60 reis or about 2d. And in the 16th century also 60 reis appears from the papers of Gerson da Cunha to have been the equivalent of the silver tanga of Goa and Bassein, though all the equations that he gives suggest that the rei may have been more valuable then.
The denomination is also found in Russia under the form dengi. See a quotation under COPECK, and compare PARDAO.
c. 1335.—"According to what I have heard from the Shaikh Mubarak, the red lak (see LACK) contains 100,000 golden tankahs, and the white lak 100,000 (silver) tankahs. The golden tanka, called in this country the red tanka, is equivalent to three mithḳāls, and the silver tanka is equivalent to 8 hashtkānī dirhams, this dirham being of the same weight as the silver dirham current in Egypt and Syria."—Masālik-al-abṣār, in Not. et Exts. xiii. 211.
c. 1340.—"Then I returned home after sunset and found the money at my house. There were 3 bags containing in all 6233 tankas, i.e. the equivalent of the 55,000 dīnārs (of silver) which was the amount of my debts, and of the 12,000 which the sultan had previously ordered to be paid me, after of course deducting the tenth part according to Indian custom. The value of the piece called tanka is 2½ dīnārs in gold of Barbary."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 426. (Here the gold tanga is spoken of.)
c. 1370.—"Sultán Fíroz issued several varieties of coins. There was the gold tanka, and the silver tanka," &c.—Táríkh-i-Fíroz Sháhí, in Elliot, iii. 357.
1404.—"... vna sua moneda de plata que llaman Tangaes."—Clavijo, f. 46b.
1516.—"... a round coin like ours, and with Moorish letters on both sides, and about the size of a fanon (see FANAM) of Calicut, ... and its worth 55 maravedis; they call these tanga, and they are of very fine silver."—Barbosa, 45.
[1519.—Rules regulating ferry-dues at Goa: "they may demand for this one tamgua only."—Archiv. Port. Orient. fasc. 5, p. 18.]
c. 1541.—"Todar ... fixed first a golden ashrafi (see ASHRAFEE) as the enormous remuneration for one stone, which induced the Ghakkars to flock to him in such numbers that afterwards a stone was paid with a rupee, and this pay gradually fell to 5 tankas, till the fortress (Rōhtās) was completed."—Táríkh-i-Khán-Jahán Lodí, in Elliot, v. 115. (These are the Bahlūlī or Sikandarī tankas of copper, as are also those in the next quotation from Elliot.)
1559.—"The old Muscovite money is not round but oblong or egg-shaped, and is called denga.... 100 of these coins make a Hungarian gold-piece; 6 dengas make an altin; 20 a grifna; 100 a poltina; and 200 a ruble."—Herberstein, in Ramusio, ii. f. 158v.
[1571.—"Gujarati tankchahs at 100 tankchahs to the rupee. At the present time the rupee is fixed at 40 dams.... As the current value of the tankchah of Pattan, etc., was less than that of Gujarat."—Mirat-i-Ahmadī, in Bayley, Gujarat, pp. 6, 11.
[1591.—"Dingoes." See under RUBLE.]
1592-3.—"At the present time, namely, A.H. 1002, Hindustan contains 3200 towns, and upon each town are dependent 200, 500, 1000, or 1500 villages. The whole yields a revenue of 640 krors (see CRORE) murádí tankas."—Ṭabaḳāt-i-Akbarī, in Elliot, v. 186.
1598.—"There is also a kinde of reckoning of money which is called Tangas, not that there is any such coined, but are so named onely in telling, five Tangas is one Pardaw (see PARDAO), or Xeraphin badde money, for you must understande that in telling they have two kinds of money, good and badde, for foure Tangas good money are as much as five Tangas badde money."—Linschoten, ch. 35; [Hak. Soc. i. 241].
[c. 1610.—"The silver money of Goa is perdos, larins, Tangues, the last named worth 7 sols, 6 deniers a piece."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 69.]
1615.—"Their moneyes in Persia of silver, are the ... the rest of copper, like the Tangas and Pisos (see PICE) of India."—Richard Steele, in Purchas, i. 543.
[c. 1630.—"There he expended fifty thousand Crow (see CRORE) of tacks ... sometimes twenty tack make one Roopee."—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1677, p. 64.]
1673.—"Tango." See under REAS.
[1638.—"Their (at Surat) ordinary way of accompting is by lacs, each of which is worth 100,000 ropias (see RUPEE), and 100 {898a}lacs make a crou, or carroa (see CRORE), and 10 carroas make an Areb. A Theil (see TOLA, TAEL) of silver (? gold) makes 11, 12, or 13 ropias ready money. A massa (māshā) and a half make a Thiel of silver, 10 whereof make a Thiel of gold. They call their brass and copper-money Tacques."—Mandelslo, 107.]
c. 1750-60.—"Throughout Malabar and Goa, they use tangas, vintins, and Pardoo (see PARDAO) xeraphin."—Grose, i. 283. The Goa tanga was worth 60 reis, that of Ormus 6234⁄43 to 6933⁄43 reis.
[1753.—In Khiva "... Tongas, a small piece of copper, of which 1500 are equal to a ducat."—Hanway, i. 351.]
1815.—"... one tungah ... a coin about the value of fivepence."—Malcolm, H. of Persia, ii. 250.
[1876.—"... it seemed strange to me to find that the Russian word for money, denga or dengi, in the form tenga, meant everywhere in Central Asia a coin of twenty kopeks...."—Schuyler, Turkistan, i. 153.]
TANGUN, TANYAN, s. Hind. ṭānghan, ṭāngan; apparently from Tibetan rTaṅāṅ, the vernacular name of this kind of horse (rTa, 'horse'). The strong little pony of Bhutān and Tibet.
c. 1590.—"In the confines of Bengal, near Kuch [-Bahár], another kind of horses occurs, which rank between the gúṭ (see GOONT) and Turkish horses, and are called táng'han: they are strong and powerful."—Āīn, i. 133.
1774.—"2d. That for the possession of the Chitchanotta Province, the Deb Raja shall pay an annual tribute of five Tangan Horses to the Honorable Company, which was the acknowledgment paid to the Deb Raja."—Treaty of Peace between the H.E.I.C. and the Rajah of Bootan, in Aitchison's Treaties, i. 144.
" "We were provided with two tangun ponies of a mean appearance, and were prejudiced against them unjustly. On better acquaintance they turned out patient, sure-footed, and could climb the Monument."—Bogle's Narrative, in Markham, 17.
1780.—"... had purchased 35 Jhawah or young elephants, of 8 or 9 years old, 60 Tankun, or ponies of Manilla and Pegu."—H. of Hydur Naik, 383.
" "... small horses brought from the mountains on the eastern side of Bengal. These horses are called tanyans, and are mostly pyebald."—Hodges, Travels, 31.
1782.—"To be sold, a Phaeton, in good condition, with a pair of young Tanyan Horses, well broke."—India Gazette, Oct. 26.
1793.—"As to the Tanguns or Tanyans, so much esteemed in India for their hardiness, they come entirely from the Upper Tibet, and notwithstanding their make, are so sure footed that the people of Nepaul {898b}ride them without fear over very steep mountains, and along the brink of the deepest precipices."—Kirkpatrick's Nepaul, 135.
1854.—"These animals, called Tanghan, are wonderfully strong and enduring; they are never shod, and the hoof often cracks.... The Tibetans give the foals of value messes of pig's blood and raw liver, which they devour greedily, and it is said to strengthen them wonderfully; the custom is, I believe, general in Central Asia."—Hooker, Himalayan Journals, 1st ed. ii. 131.
TANJORE, n.p. A city and District of S. India; properly Tañjāvūr ('Low Town'?), so written in the inscription on the great Tanjore Pagoda (11th century). [The Madras Manual gives two derivations: "Tañjāvūr, familiarly called Tañjai by the natives. It is more fully given as Tañjai-mānagaram, Tañjan's great city, after its founder. Tañjam means 'refuge, shelter'" (ii. 216). The Gloss. gives Tañjāvūr, Tam. tañjam, 'asylum,' ūr, 'village.']
[1816.—"The Tanjore Pill, it is said, is made use of with great success in India against the bite of mad dogs, and that of the most venemous serpents."—Asiatic Journal, ii. 381.]
TANK, s. A reservoir, an artificial pond or lake, made either by excavation or by damming. This is one of those perplexing words which seem to have a double origin, in this case one Indian, the other European.
As regards what appears to be the Indian word, Shakespear gives: "Tānk'h (in Guzerat), an underground reservoir for water." [And so Platts.] Wilson gives: "Ṭánkeṇ or ṭákeṇ, Mahr. ... Tánkh (said to be Guzeráthí). A reservoir of water, an artificial pond, commonly known to Europeans in India as a Tank. Ṭánki, Guz. A reservoir of water; a small well." R. Drummond, in his Illustrations of Guzerattee, &c., gives: "Tanka (Mah.) and Tankoo (Guz.) Reservoirs, constructed of stone or brick or lime, of larger and lesser size, generally inside houses.... They are almost entirely covered at top, having but a small aperture to let a pot or bucket down."... "In the towns of Bikaner," says Tod, "most families have large cisterns or reservoirs called Tankas, filled by the rains" (Rajputana, ii. 202). Again, speaking of towns in the desert of Márwár, he says: "they collect the rain water in {899a}reservoirs called Tanka, which they are obliged to use sparingly, as it is said to produce night blindness" (ii. 300). Again, Dr. Spilsbury (J.A.S.B. ix. pt. 2, 891), describing a journey in the Nerbudda Basin, cites the word, and notes: "I first heard this word used by a native in the Betool district; on asking him if at the top of Bowergurh there was any spring, he said No, but there was a Tanka or place made of pukka (stone and cement) for holding water." Once more, in an Appendix to the Report of the Survey of India for 1881-1882, Mr. G. A. MacGill, speaking of the rain cisterns in the driest part of Rajputana, says: "These cisterns or wells are called by the people tánkás" (App. p. 12). See also quotation below from a Report by Major Strahan. It is not easy to doubt the genuineness of the word, which may possibly be from Skt. taḍaga, taṭāga, taṭāka, 'a pond, pool, or tank.'
Fr. Paolino, on the other hand, says the word tanque used by the Portuguese in India was Portoghesa corrotta, which is vague. But in fact tanque is a word which appears in all Portuguese dictionaries, and which is used by authors so early after the opening of communication with India (we do not know if there is an instance actually earlier) that we can hardly conceive it to have been borrowed from an Indian language, nor indeed could it have been borrowed from Guzerat and Rajpūtāna, to which the quotations above ascribe the vernacular word. This Portuguese word best suits, and accounts for that application of tank to large sheets of water which is habitual in India. The indigenous Guzerati and Mahratti word seems to belong rather to what we now call a tank in England; i.e. a small reservoir for a house or ship. Indeed the Port. tanque is no doubt a form of the Lat. stagnum, which gives It. stagno, Fr. old estang and estan, mod. étang, Sp. estanque, a word which we have also in old English and in Lowland Scotch, thus:
1589.—"They had in them stanges or pondes of water full of fish of sundrie sortes."—Parkes's Mendoza, Hak. Soc. ii. 46.
c. 1785.—
"I never drank the Muses' stank,
Castalia's burn and a' that;
But there it streams, and richly reams,
My Helicon I ca' that."—
Burns.
It will be seen that Pyrard de Laval uses estang, as if specifically, for the tank of India.
1498.—"And many other saints were there painted on the walls of the church, and these wore diadems, and their portraiture was in a divers kind, for their teeth were so great that they stood an inch beyond the mouth, and every saint had 4 or 5 arms, and below the church stood a great tanque wrought in cut stone like many others that we had seen by the way."—Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, 57.
" "So the Captain Major ordered Nicolas Coelho to go in an armed boat, and see where the water was, and he found in the said island (Anchediva) a building, a church of great ashlar work which had been destroyed by the Moors, as the country people said, only the chapel had been covered with straw, and they used to make their prayers to three black stones which stood in the midst of the body of the chapel. Moreover they found just beyond the church a tanque of wrought ashlar in which we took as much water as we wanted; and at the top of the whole island stood a great tanque of the depth of 4 fathoms, and moreover we found in front of the church a beach where we careened the ship Berrio."—Ibid. 95.
1510.—"Early in the morning these Pagans go to wash at a tank, which tank is a pond of still water (—ad uno Tancho il qual Tancho è una fossa d'acqua morta)."—Varthema, 149.
" "Near to Calicut there is a temple in the midst of a tank, that is, in the middle of a pond of water."—Ibid. 175.
1553.—"In this place where the King (Bahádur Sháh) established his line of battle, on one side there was a great river, and on the other a tank (tanque) of water, such as they are used to make in those parts. For as there are few streams to collect the winter's waters, they make these tanks (which might be more properly called lakes), all lined with stone. They are so big that many are more than a league in compass."—Barros, IV. vi. 5.
c. 1610.—"Son logis estoit éloigné près d'vne lieuë du palais Royal, situé sur vn estang, et basty de pierres, ayant bien demy lieuë de tour, comme rous les autres estangs."—Pyrard de Laval, ed. 1679, i. 262; [Hak. Soc. i. 367].
[1615.—"I rode early ... to the tancke to take the ayre."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 78.]
1616.—"Besides their Rivers ... they have many Ponds, which they call Tankes."—Terry, in Purchas, ii. 1470.
1638.—"A very faire Tanke, which is a square pit paved with gray marble."—W. Bruton, in Hakl. v. 50.
1648.—"... a standing water or Tanck...."—Van Twist, Gen. Beschr. 11.
1672.—"Outside and round about Suratte, there are elegant and delightful houses for {900a}recreation, and stately cemeteries in the usual fashion of the Moors, and also divers Tanks and reservoirs built of hard and solid stone."—Baldaeus, p. 12.
1673.—"Within a square Court, to which a stately Gate-house makes a Passage, in the middle whereof a Tank vaulted...."—Fryer, 27.
1754.—"The post in which the party intended to halt had formerly been one of those reservoirs of water called tanks, which occur so frequently in the arid plains of this country."—Orme, i. 354.
1799.—"One crop under a tank in Mysore or the Carnatic yields more than three here."—T. Munro, in Life, i. 241.
1809.—
"Water so cool and clear,
The peasants drink not from the humble well.
* * * * *
Nor tanks of costliest masonry dispense
To those in towns who dwell,
The work of kings in their beneficence."
Kehama, xiii. 6.
1883.—"... all through sheets[263] 124, 125, 126, and 131, the only drinking water is from 'tankas,' or from 'tobs.' The former are circular pits puddled with clay, and covered in with wattle and daub domes, in the top of which are small trap doors, which are kept locked; in these the villages store rain-water; the latter are small and somewhat deep ponds dug in the valleys where the soil is clayey, and are filled by the rain; these latter of course do not last long, and then the inhabitants are entirely dependent on their tankas, whilst their cattle migrate to places where the well-water is fit for use."—Report on Cent. Ind. and Rajputana Topogr. Survey (Bickaneer and Jeysulmeer). By Major C. Strachan, R.E., in Report of the Survey in India, 1882-83, App. p. 4. [The writer in the Rajputana Gazetteer (Bikanir) (i. 182) calls these covered pits kund, and the simple excavations sār.]
TANOR, n.p. An ancient town and port about 22 miles south of Calicut. There is a considerable probability that it was the Tyndis of the Periplus. It was a small kingdom at the arrival of the Portuguese, in partial subjection to the Zamorin. [The name is Malayāl. Tānūr, tanni, the tree Terminalis belerica, ūr, village.]
1516.—"Further on ... are two places of Moors 5 leagues from one another. One is called Paravanor, and the other Tanor, and inland from these towns is a lord to whom they belong; and he has many Nairs, and sometimes he rebels against the King of Calicut. In these towns there is much {900b}shipping and trade, for these Moors are great merchants."—Barbosa, Hak. Soc. 153.
1521.—"Cotate was a great man among the Moors, very rich, and lord of Tanor, who carried on a great sea-trade with many ships, which trafficked all about the coast of India with passes from our Governors, for he only dealt in wares of the country; and thus he was the greatest possible friend of the Portuguese, and those who went to his dwelling were entertained with the greatest honour, as if they had been his brothers. In fact for this purpose he kept houses fitted up, and both cots and bedsteads furnished in our fashion, with tables and chairs and casks of wine, with which he regaled our people, giving them entertainments and banquets, insomuch that it seemed as if he were going to become a Christian...."—Correa, ii. 679.
1528.—"And in the year (A.H.) 935, a ship belonging to the Franks was wrecked off Tanoor.... Now the Ray of that place affording aid to the crew, the Zamorin sent a messenger to him demanding of him the surrender of the Franks who composed it, together with such parts of the cargo of the ship as had been saved, but that chieftain having refused compliance with this demand, a treaty of peace was entered into with the Franks by him; and from this time the subjects of the Ray of Tanoor traded under the protection of the passes of the Franks."—Tohfut-ul-Mujahideen, E.T. 124-125.
1553.—"For Lopo Soares having arrived at Cochin after his victory over the Çamorin, two days later the King of Tanor, the latter's vassal, sent (to Lopo) to complain against the Çamorin by ambassadors, begging for peace and help against him, having fallen out with him for reasons that touched the service of the King of Portugal."—Barros, I. vii. 10.
1727.—"Four leagues more southerly is Tannore, a Town of small Trade, inhabited by Mahometans."—A. Hamilton, i. 322; [ed. 1744].
TAPPAUL, s. The word used in S. India for 'post,' in all the senses in which dawk (q.v.) is used in Northern India. Its origin is obscure. C. P. Brown suggests connection with the Fr. étape (which is the same originally as the Eng. staple). It is sometimes found in the end of the 18th century written tappa or tappy. But this seems to have been derived from Telugu clerks, who sometimes write tappā as a singular of tappālu, taking the latter for a plural (C.P.B.). Wilson appears to give the word a southern origin. But though its use is confined to the South and West, Mr. Beames assigns to it an Aryan origin: "ṭappā 'post-office,' i.e. place where {901a}letters are stamped, ṭappāl 'letter-post' (ṭappā + alya = 'stamping-house')," connecting it radically with ṭāpā 'a coop,' ṭāpnā 'to tap,' 'flatten,' 'beat down,' ṭapak 'a sledge hammer,' ṭīpnā 'to press,' &c. [with which Platts agrees.]
1799.—"You will perceive that we have but a small chance of establishing the tappal to Poonah."—Wellington, i. 50.
1800.—"The Tappal does not go 30 miles a day."—T. Munro, in Life, i. 244.
1809.—"Requiring only two sets of bearers I knew I might go by tappaul the whole way to Seringapatam."—Ld. Valentia, i. 385.
TAPTEE R., n.p. Tāptī; also called Tāpī, [Skt. Tāpī, 'that which is hot']. The river that runs by the city of Surat.
[1538.—"Tapi." See under GODAVERY.]
c. 1630.—"Surat is ... watered with a sweet River named Tappee (or Tindy), as broad as the Thames at Windsor."—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1638, p. 36.
1813.—"The sacred groves of Pulparra are the general resort for all the Yogees (Jogee), Senassees (Sunyasee), and Hindoo pilgrims ... the whole district is holy, and the Tappee in that part has more than common sanctity."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 286; [2nd ed. i. 184, and compare i. 176].
" "Tappee or Tapty."—Ibid. 244; [2nd ed. i. 146].
TARA, TARE, s. The name of a small silver coin current in S. India at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese. It seems to have survived longest in Calicut. The origin we have not traced. It is curious that the commonest silver coin in Sicily down to 1860, and worth about 4½d., was a tarī, generally considered to be a corruption of dirhem. I see Sir Walter Elliot has mooted this very question in his Coins of S. India (p. 138). [The word is certainly Malayāl. tāram, defined in the Madras Gloss. as "a copper coin, value 1½ pies." Mr. Gray in his note to the passage from Pyrard de Laval quoted below, suggests that it took its name from tāra, 'a star.']
1442.—"They cast (at Vijayanagar), in pure silver a coin which is the sixth of the fanom, which they call tar."—Abdurrazzāk, in India in the XV. Cent. 26.
1506.—(The Viceroy, D. Francisco D'Almeida, wintering his fleet in Cochin). "As the people were numerous they made quite a big town with a number of houses covered with upper stories of timber, and streets {901b}also where the people of the country set up their stalls in which they sold plenty of victuals, and cheap. Thus for a vinten of silver you got in change 20 silver coins that they called taras, something like the scale of a sardine, and for such coin they gave you 12 or 15 figs, or 4 or 5 eggs, and for a single vintem 3 or 4 fowls, and for one tara fish enough to fill two men's bellies, or rice enough for a day's victuals, dinner and supper too. Bread there was none, for there was no wheat except in the territory of the Moors."—Correa, i. 624.
1510.—The King of Narsinga (or Vijayanagar) "coins a silver money called tare, and others of gold, twenty of which go to a pardao, and are called fanom. And of these small ones of silver, there go 16 to a fanom."—Varthema, 130.
[c. 1610.—"Each man receives four tarents, which are small silver coins, each of the value of one-sixteenth of a larin."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 344. Later on (i. 412) he says "16 tarens go to a Phanan"].
1673.—(at Calicut). "Their coin admits no Copper; Silver Tarrs, 28 of which make a Fanam, passing instead thereof."—Fryer, 55.
" "Calicut.
* * * * *
"Tarrs are the peculiar Coin, the rest are common to India."—Ibid. 207.
1727.—"Calecut ... coins are 10 Tar to a Fanam, 4½ Fanams to a Rupee."—A. Hamilton, ii. 316; [ed. 1744].
[1737.—"We are to allow each man 4 measures of rice and 1 tar per diem."—Agreement in Logan, Malabar, iii. 95, and see "tarrs" in iii. 192. Mr. Logan (vol. iii. Gloss. s.v.) defines the tara as equal to 2 pies.]
TARE AND TRET. Whence comes this odd firm in the books of arithmetic? Both partners apparently through Italy. The first Fr. tare, It. tara, from Ar. ṭaraḥa, 'to reject,' as pointed out by Dozy. Tret is alleged to be from It. tritare, 'to crumble or grind,' perhaps rather from trito, 'ground or triturated.' [Prof. Skeat (Concise Dict. s.v.) derives it from Fr. traite, 'a draught,' and that from Lat. tractus, trahere, 'to draw.']
TAREGA, s. This represents a word for a broker (or person analogous to the hong merchants of Canton in former days) in Pegu, in the days of its prosperity. The word is from S. India. We have in Tel. taraga, 'the occupation of a broker'; Tam. taragari, 'a broker.'
1568.—"Sono in Pegu otto sensari del Re che si chiamano Tarege li quali sono {902a}obligati di far vendere tutte le mercantie ... per il prezzo corrente."—Ces.
TARIFF, s. This comes from Ar. ta'rīf, ta'rīfa, 'the making known.' Dozy states that it appears to be comparatively modern in Spanish and Port., and has come into Europe apparently through Italian.
[1591.—"So that helping your memorie with certain Tablei or Tariffas made of purpose to know the numbers of the souldiers that are to enter into ranke."—Garrard, Art Warre, p. 224 (Stanf. Dict.).
[1617.—"... a brief Tareg of Persia."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 462.]
TAROUK, TAROUP, n.p. Burm. Tarūk, Tarūp. This is the name given by the Burmese to the Chinese. Thus a point a little above the Delta of the Irawadi, where the invading army of Kublai Khan (c. 1285) is said to have turned back, is called Tarūk-mau, or Chinese Point. But the use of this name, according to Sir A. Phayre, dates only from the Middle Ages, and the invasion just mentioned. Before that the Chinese, as we understand him, are properly termed Tsin; though the coupled names Tarūk and Taret, which are applied in the chronicles to early invaders, "may be considered as designations incorrectly applied by later copyists." And Sir A. Phayre thinks Tarūk is a form of Tūrk, whilst Taret is now applied to the Manchus. It seems to us probable that Taruk and Taret are probably meant for 'Turk and Tartar' (see H. of Burma, pp. 8, 11, 56). [Mr. Scott (Upper Burma Gazetteer, i. pt. i. 193) suggests a connection with the Teru or Tero State, which developed about the 11th century, the race having been expelled from China in 778 A.D.]
TASHREEF, s. This is the Ar. tashrīf, 'honouring'; and thus {902b}"conferring honour upon anyone, as by paying him a visit, presenting a dress of honour, or any complimentary donation" (Wilson). In Northern India the general use of the word is as one of ceremonious politeness in speaking of a visit from a superior or from one who is treated in politeness as a superior; when such an one is invited to 'bring his tashrīf,' i.e. 'to carry the honour of his presence,' 'to condescend to visit '——. The word always implies superiority on the part of him to whom tashrīf is attributed. It is constantly used by polite natives in addressing Europeans. But when the European in return says (as we have heard said, through ignorance of the real meaning of the phrase), 'I will bring my tashrīf,' the effect is ludicrous in the extreme, though no native will betray his amusement. In S. India the word seems to be used for the dress of honour conferred, and in the old Madras records, rightly or wrongly, for any complimentary present, in fact a honorarium. Thus in Wheeler we find the following:
1674.—"He (Lingapa, naik of Poonamalee) had, he said, carried a tasheriff to the English, and they had refused to take it...."—Op. cit. i. 84.
1680.—"It being necessary to appoint one as the Company's Chief Merchant (Verona being deceased), resolved Bera Pedda Vincatadry, do succeed and the Tasheriffs be given to him and the rest of the principal Merchants, viz., 3 yards Scarlett to Pedda Vincatadry, and 2½ yards each to four others....
"The Governor being informed that Verona's young daughter was melancholly and would not eat because her husband had received no Tasheriff, he also is Tasherifd with 2½ yards Scarlet cloth."—Fort St. Geo. Consns., April 6. In Notes and Exts., Madras, 1873, p. 15.
1685.—"Gopall Pundit having been at great charge in coming hither with such a numerous retinue ... that we may engage him ... to continue his friendship, to attain some more and better privileges there (at Cuddalore) than we have as yet—It is ordered that he with his attendants be Tasherift as followeth" (a list of presents follows).—In Wheeler, i. 148. [And see the same phrase in Pringle, Diary, &c., i. 1].
TATTOO, and abbreviated, TAT, s. A native-bred pony. Hind. ṭaṭṭū, [which Platts connects with Skt. tara, 'passing over'].
c. 1324.—"Tughlak sent his son Mahommed to bring Khusrū back. Mahommed seized the latter and brought him to his {903a}father mounted on a tātū, i.e. a pack-horse."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 207.
1784.—"On their arrival at the Choultry they found a miserable dooley and 15 tattoo horses."—In Seton-Karr, i. 15.
1785.—"We also direct that strict injunctions be given to the baggage department, for sending all the lean Tatoos, bullocks, &c., to grass, the rainy season being now at hand."—Tippoo's Letters, 105.
1804.—"They can be got for 25 rupees each horseman upon an average; but, I believe, when they receive only this sum they muster tattoos.... From 30 to 35 rupees each horse is the sum paid to the best horsemen."—Wellington, iii. 174.
1808.—"These tut,hoos are a breed of small ponies, and are the most useful and hardy little animals in India."—Broughton's Letters, 156; [ed. 1892, 117].
1810.—"Every servant ... goes share in some tattoo ... which conveys his luggage."—Williamson, V.M. i. 311.
1824.—"Tattoos. These are a kind of small, cat-hammed, and ill-looking ponies; but they are hardy and walk faster than oxen."—Seely, Wonders of Ellora, ch. ii.
1826.—"... when I mounted on my tattoo, or pony, I could at any time have commanded the attendance of a dozen grooms, so many pressed forward to offer me their services."—Pandurang Hari, 21; [ed. 1873, i. 28].
[1830.—"Mounting our tats, we were on the point of proceeding homewards...."—Oriental Sport. Mag., ed. 1873, i. 437.]
c. 1831.—"... mon tattou est fort au dessous de la taille d'un arabe...."—Jacquemont, Corresp. i. 347.
c. 1840.
"With its bright brass patent axles, and its little hog-maned tatts,
And its ever jetty harness, which was always made by Watts...."
A few lines in honour of the late Mr. Simms,
in Parker's Bole Ponjis, 1851, ii. 215.
1853.—"... Smith's plucky proposal to run his notable tat, Pickles."—Oakfield, i. 94.
1875.—"You young Gentlemen rode over on your tats, I suppose? The Subaltern's tat—that is the name, you know, they give to a pony in this country—is the most useful animal you can imagine."—The Dilemma, ch. ii.
TATTY, s. Hind. ṭaṭṭī and ṭaṭi, [which Platts connects with Skt. tantra, 'a thread, the warp in a loom']. A screen or mat made of the roots of fragrant grass (see CUSCUS) with which door or window openings are filled up in the season of hot winds. The screens being kept wet, their fragrant evaporation as the dry winds blow upon them cools and refreshes {903b}the house greatly, but they are only efficient when such winds are blowing. See also THERMANTIDOTE. The principle of the tatty is involved in the quotation from Dr. Fryer, though he does not mention the grass-mats.
c. 1665.—"... or having in lieu of Cellarage certain Kas-Kanays, that is, little Houses of Straw, or rather of odoriferous Roots, that are very neatly made, and commonly placed in the midst of a Parterre ... that so the Servants may easily with their Pompion-bottles, water them from without."—Bernier, E.T. 79; [ed. Constable, 247].
1673.—"They keep close all day for 3 or 4 Months together ... repelling the Heat by a coarse wet Cloath, continually hanging before the chamber-windows."—Fryer, 47.
[1789.—The introduction of tatties into Calcutta is mentioned in a letter from Dr. Campbell, dated May 10, 1789:—"We have had very hot winds and delightful cool houses. Everybody uses tatties now.... Tatties are however dangerous when you are obliged to leave them and go abroad, the heat acts so powerfully on the body that you are commonly affected with a severe catarrh."—In Carey, Good Old Days, i. 80.]
1808.—"... now, when the hot winds have set in, and we are obliged to make use of tattees, a kind of screens made of the roots of a coarse grass called Kus."—Broughton's Letters, 110; [ed. 1892, p. 83].
1809.—"Our style of architecture is by no means adapted to the climate, and the large windows would be insufferable, were it not for the tattyes which are easily applied to a house one story high."—Ld. Valentia, i. 104.
1810.—"During the hot winds tats (a kind of mat), made of the root of the koosa grass, which has an agreeable smell, are placed against the doors and windows."—Maria Graham, 125.
1814.—"Under the roof, throughout all the apartments, are iron rings, from which the tattees or screens of sweet scented grass, were suspended."—Forbes, Or. Mem. iv. 6; [2nd ed. ii. 392].
1828.—"An early breakfast was over; the well watered tatties were applied to the windows, and diffused through the apartment a cool and refreshing atmosphere which was most comfortably contrasted with the white heat and roar of the fierce wind without."—The Kuzzilbash, I. ii.
TAUT, s. Hind. ṭāṭ, [Skt. trātra, 'defence,' or tantrī, 'made of threads']. Sackcloth.
[c. 1810.—"In this district (Dinajpoor) large quantities of this cloth (Tat or Choti) are made...."—Buchanan, Eastern India, ii. 851.]
1820.—"... made into coarse cloth taut, by the Brinjaries and people who use {904a}pack bullocks for making bags (gonies, see GUNNY) for holding grain, &c."—Tr. Bo. Lit. Soc. iii. 244.
TAVOY, n.p. A town and district of what we call the Tenasserim Province of B. Burma. The Burmese call it Dha-wé; but our name is probably adopted from a Malay form. The original name is supposed to be Siamese. [The Burmah Gazetteer (ii. 681) gives the choice of three etymologies: 'landing place of bamboos'; from its arms (dha, 'a sword,' way, 'to buy'); from Hta-way, taken from a cross-legged Buddha.]
1553.—"The greater part of this tract is mountainous, and inhabited by the nation of Brammás and Jangomas, who interpose on the east of this kingdom (Pegu) between it and the great kingdom of Siam; which kingdom of Siam borders the sea from the city of Tavay downwards."—Barros, III. iii. 4.
1583.—"Also some of the rich people in a place subject to the Kingdom of Pegu, called Tavae, where is produced a quantity of what they call in their language Calain, but which in our language is called Calaia (see CALAY), in summer leave their houses and go into the country, where they make some sheds to cover them, and there they stop three months, leaving their usual dwellings with food in them for the devil, and this they do in order that in the other nine months he may give them no trouble, but rather be propitious and favourable to them."—G. Balbi, f. 125.
1587.—"... Iland of Tavi, from which cometh great store of Tinne which serveth all India."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 395.
1695.—"10th. That your Majesty, of your wonted favour and charity to all distresses, would be pleased to look with Eyes of Pity, upon the poor English Captive, Thomas Browne, who is the only one surviving of four that were accidentally drove into Tauwy by Storm, as they were going for Atcheen about 10 years ago, in the service of the English Company."—Petition to the King of Burma, presented at Ava by Edward Fleetwood, in Dalrymple, Or. Repert. ii. 374.
[TAWEEZ, s. Ar. ta'wīẓ, lit. 'praying for protection by invoking God, or by uttering a charm'; then 'an amulet or phylactery'; and, as in the quotation from Herklots, 'a structure of brick or stone-work over a tomb.'
[1819.—"The Jemidar ... as he is very superstitious, all his stud have turveez or charms...."—Lt.-Col. Fitzclarence, Journal of a Route across India, 144.
[1826.—
"Let her who doth this Taweey wear,
Guard against the Gossein's snare."
Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 148.
[1832.—"The generality of people have tombs made of mud or stone ... forming first three square taweezes or platforms...."—Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, 2nd ed. 284.]
[TAZEE, s. Pers. tāzī, 'invading, invader,' from tāz, 'running.' A favourite variety of horse, usually of Indian breed. The word is also used of a variety of greyhound.
[c. 1590.—"Horses have been divided into seven classes.... Arabs, Persian horses, Mujannas, Turki horses, Yabus (see YABOO) and Janglah horses.... The last two classes are also mostly Indian breed. The best kind is called Tází...."—Āīn, i. 234-5.
[1839.—"A good breed of the Indian kind, called Tauzee, is also found in Bunnoo and Damaun...."—Elphinstone, Caubul, ed. 1842, i. 189.
[1883.—"The 'Tazzies,' or greyhounds are not looked upon as unclean...."—Wills, Modern Persia, ed. 1891, p. 306.]
TAZEEA, n. A.—P.—H. ta'ziya, 'mourning for the dead.' In India the word is applied to the taboot, or representations, in flimsy material, of the tombs of Hussein and Hassan which are carried about in the Muḥarram (see MOHURRUM) processions. In Persia it seems to be applied to the whole of the mystery-play which is presented at that season. At the close of the procession the ta'ziyas must be thrown into water; if there be no sufficient mass of water they should be buried. [See Sir L. Pelly, The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain.] The word has been carried to the W. Indies by the coolies, whose great festival (whether they be Mahommedans or Hindus) the Muḥarram has become. And the attempt to carry the Tazeeas through one of the towns of Trinidad, in spite of orders to the contrary, led in the end of 1884 to a sad catastrophe. [Mahommedan Lascars have an annual celebration at the London Docks.]
1809.—"There were more than a hundred Taziyus, each followed by a long train of Fuqueers, dressed in the most extravagant manner, beating their breasts ... such of the Mahratta Surdars as are not Brahmuns frequently construct Taziyus at their own tents, and expend large sums of money upon them."—Broughton, Letters, 72; [ed. 1892, 53].
1869.—"En lisant la description ... de ces fêtes on croira souvent qu'il s'agit de fêtes hindous. Telle est par exemple la solennité du ta'zia ou deuil, établie en commemoration du martyre de Huçaïn, laquelle est semblable en bien de points à celle du Durga-pujâ.... Le ta'ziya dure dix jours comme le Durga-pujâ. Le dixième jour, les Hindous précipitent dans la rivière la statue de la déesse au milieu d'une foule immense, avec un grand appareil et au son de mille instruments de musique; la même chose a lieu pour les représentations du tombeau de Huçaïn."—Garcin de Tassy, Rel. Musulm. p. 11.
TEA, s. Crawfurd alleges that we got this word in its various European forms from the Malay Te, the Chinese name being Chhâ. The latter is indeed the pronunciation attached, when reading in the 'mandarin dialect,' to the character representing the tea-plant, and is the form which has accompanied the knowledge of tea to India, Persia, Portugal, Greece (τσάι) and Russia. But though it may be probable that Te, like several other names of articles of trade, may have come to us through the Malay, the word is, not the less, originally Chinese, Tê (or Tay as Medhurst writes it) being the utterance attached to the character in the Fuh-kien dialect. The original pronunciation, whether direct from Fuh-kien or through the Malay, accompanied the introduction of tea to England as well as other countries of Western Europe. This is shown by several couplets in Pope, e.g.
1711.—
"... There stands a structure of majestic frame
Which from the neighbouring Hampton takes its name.
* * * * *
Here thou, great Anna, whom three Realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea."
Rape of the Lock, iii.
Here tay was evidently the pronunciation, as in Fuh-kien. The Rape of the Lock was published in 1711. In Gray's Trivia, published in 1720, we find tea rhyme to pay, in a passage needless to quote (ii. 296). Fifty years later there seems no room for doubt that the pronunciation had changed to that now in use, as is shown by Johnson's extemporised verses (c. 1770):
"I therefore pray thee, Renny, dear,
That thou wilt give to me
With cream and sugar soften'd well,
Another dish of tea"—and so on.
Johnsoniana, ed. Boswell, 1835, ix. 194.
The change must have taken place between 1720 and 1750, for about the latter date we find in the verses of Edward Moore:
"One day in July last at tea,
And in the house of Mrs. P."
The Trial of Sarah, &c.
[But the two forms of pronunciation seem to have been in use earlier, as appears from the following advertisement in The Gazette of Sept. 9, 1658 (quoted in 8 ser. N. & Q. vi. 266): "That excellent, and by all Physitians approved, China Drink, called by the Chineans Toha, by other nations Tay, alias Tee, is sold at the Sultaness Head, a coffee house in Sweetings Rents by the Royal Exchange, London."] And in Zedler's Lexicon (1745) it is stated that the English write the word either Tee or Tea, but pronounce it Tiy, which seems to represent our modern pronunciation. ["Strange to say, the Italians, however, have two names for tea, cia and te, the latter, of course, is from the Chinese word te, noticed above, while the former is derived from the word ch'a. It is curious to note in this connection that an early mention, if not the first notice, of the word in English is under the form cha (in an English Glossary of A.D. 1671); we are also told that it was once spelt tcha—both evidently derived from the Cantonese form of the word: but 13 years later we have the word derived from the Fokienese te, but borrowed through the French and spelt as in the latter language the; the next change in the word is early in the following century when it drops the French spelling and adopts the present form of tea, though the Fokienese pronunciation, which the French still retain, is not dropped for the modern pronunciation of the now wholly Anglicised word tea till comparatively lately. It will thus be seen that we, like the Italians, might have had two forms of the word, had we not discarded the first, which seemed to have made but little lodgement with us, for the second" (Ball, Things Chinese, 3rd ed. 583 seq.).]
Dr. Bretschneider states that the Tea-shrub is mentioned in the ancient Dictionary Rh-ya, which is believed to date long before our era, under the names Kia and K'u-tu (K'u = 'bitter'), and a commentator on this work who wrote in the 4th century A.D. describes it, adding "From the leaves can be made by boiling a hot beverage" (On Chinese Botanical Works, &c., p. 13). But the first distinct mention of tea-cultivation in Chinese history is said to be a record in the annals of the T'ang Dynasty under A.D. 793, which mentions the imposition in that year of a duty upon tea. And the first western mention of it occurs in the next century, in the notes of the Arab traders, which speak not only of tea, but of this fact of its being subject to a royal impost. Tea does not appear to be mentioned by the medieval Arab writers upon Materia Medica, nor (strange to say) do any of the European travellers to Cathay in the 13th and 14th centuries make mention of it. Nor is there any mention of it in the curious and interesting narrative of the Embassy sent by Shāh Rukh, the son of the great Timur, to China (1419-21).[264] The first European work, so far as we are aware, in which tea is named, is Ramusio's (posthumous) Introduction to Marco Polo, in the second volume of his great collection of Navigationi e Viaggi. In this he repeats the account of Cathay which he had heard from Hajji Mahommed, a Persian merchant who visited Venice. Among other matters the Hajji detailed the excellent properties of Chiai-Catai (i.e. Pers. Chā-i-Khitāī, 'Tea of China'), concluding with an assurance that if these were known in Persia and in Europe, traders would cease to purchase rhubarb, and would purchase this herb instead, a prophecy which has been very substantially verified. We find no mention of tea in the elaborate work of Mendoça on China. The earliest notices of which we are aware will be found below. Milburn {906b}gives some curious extracts from the E.I. Co.'s records as to the early importation of tea into England. Thus, 1666, June 30, among certain "raretys," chiefly the production of China, provided by the Secretary of the Company for His Majesty, appear:
| "22¾ lbs. of thea at 50s. per lb. | = £56 17 6 |
| For the two cheefe persons that attended his Majesty, thea |
6 15 6" |
In 1667 the E.I. Co.'s first order for the importation of tea was issued to their agent at Bantam: "to send home by these ships 100lb. weight of the best tey that you can get." The first importation actually made for the Co. was in 1669, when two canisters were received from Bantam, weighing 143½ lbs. (Milburn, ii. 531.) [The earliest mention of tea in the Old Records of the India Office is in a letter from Mr. R. Wickham, the Company's Agent at Firando, in Japan, who, writing, June 27, 1615, to Mr. Eaton at Miaco, asks for "a pt. of the best sort of chaw" (see Birdwood, Report on Old Records, 26, where the early references are collected).]
A.D. 851.—"The King (of China) reserves to himself ... a duty on salt, and also on a certain herb which is drunk infused in hot water. This herb is sold in all the towns at high prices; it is called sākh. It has more leaves than the ratb'ah (Medicago sativa recens) and something more of aroma, but its taste is bitter. Water is boiled and poured upon this herb. The drink so made is serviceable under all circumstances."—Relation, &c., trad. par Reinaud, i. 40.
c. 1545.—"Moreover, seeing the great delight that I above the rest of the party took in this discourse of his, he (Chaggi Memet, i.e. Hajji Mahommed) told me that all over the country of Cathay they make use of another plant, that is of its leaves, which is called by those people Chiai Catai: it is produced in that district of Cathay which is called Cachan-fu. It is a thing generally used and highly esteemed in all those regions. They take this plant whether dry or fresh, and boil it well in water, and of this decoction they take one or two cups on an empty stomach; it removes fever, headache, stomach-ache, pain in the side or joints; taking care to drink it as hot as you can bear; it is good also for many other ailments which I can't now remember, but I know gout was one of them. And if any one chance to feel his stomach oppressed by overmuch food, if he will take a little of this decoction he will in a short time have digested it. And thus it is so precious and highly esteemed that every one going on a journey takes it with him, {907a}and judging from what he said these people would at any time gladly swap a sack of rhubarb for an ounce of Chiai Catai. These people of Cathay say (he told us) that if in our country, and in Persia, and the land of the Franks, it was known, merchants would no longer invest their money in Rauend Chini as they call rhubarb."—Ramusio, Dichiaratione, in ii. f. 15.
c. 1560.—"Whatsoever person or persones come to any mans house of qualitee, hee hath a custome to offer him in a fine basket one Porcelane ... with a kinde of drinke which they call cha, which is somewhat bitter, red, and medicinall, which they are wont to make with a certayne concoction of herbes."—Da Cruz, in Purchas, iii. 180.
1565.—"Ritus est Japoniorum ... benevolentiae causâ praebere spectanda, quae apud se pretiosissima sunt, id est, omne instrumentum necessarium ad potionem herbae cujusdam in pulverem redactae, suavem gustu, nomine Chia. Est autem modus potionis ejusmodi: pulveris ejus, quantum uno juglandis putamine continetur, conjiciunt in fictile vas ex eorum genere, quae procellana (Porcelain) vulgus appellat. Inde calenti admodum aquâ dilutum ebibunt. Habent autem in eos usus ollam antiquissimi operis ferream, figlinum poculum, cochlearia, infundibulum eluendo figlino, tripodem, foculum denique potioni caleficiendae."—Letter from Japan, of L. Almeida, in Maffei, Litt.  Circa eam potionem diligentissimi sunt, ac principes interdum viri suis ipsi manibus eidem temperandae ac miscendae, amicorum honoris causae, dant operam."—Ibid. Lib. xii.
1598.—"... the aforesaid warme water is made with the powder of a certaine hearbe called chaa."—Linschoten, 46; [Hak. Soc. i. 157].
1611.—"Of the same fashion is the cha of China, and taken in the same manner; except that the Cha is the small leaf of a herb, from a certain plant brought from Tartary, which was shown me when I was at Malaca."—Teixeira, i. 19.
1616.—"I bought 3 chaw cups covered with silver plates...."—Cocks, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 202, [and see ii. 11].
1626.—"They vse much the powder of a certaine Herbe called Chia, of which they put as much as a Walnut-shell may containe, into a dish of Porcelane, and drinke it with hot water."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 587.
1631.—"Dur. You have mentioned the drink of the Chinese called Thee; what is your opinion thereof?... Bont. ... The Chinese regard this beverage almost as {907b}something sacred ... and they are not thought to have fulfilled the rites of hospitality to you until they have served you with it, just like the Mahometans with their Caveah (see COFFEE). It is of a drying quality, and banishes sleep ... it is beneficial to asthmatic and wheezing patients."—Jac. Bontius, Hist. Nat. et Med. Ind. Or. Lib. i. Dial. vi. p. 11.
1638.—"Dans les assemblées ordinaires (à Sourat) que nous faisions tous les iours, nous ne prenions que du Thè, dont l'vsage est fort cummun par toutes les Indes."—Mandelslo, ed. Paris, 1659, p. 113.
1658.—"Non mirum est, multos etiam nunc in illo errore versari, quasi diversae speciei plantae essent The et Tsia, cum è contra eadem sit, cujus decoctum Chinensibus The, Iaponensibus Tsia nomen audiat; licet horum Tsia, ob magnam contributionem et coctionem, nigrum The appellatur."—Bontii Hist. Nat. Pisonis Annot. p. 87.
1660.—(September) "28th.... I did send for a cup of tea (a China drink) of which I never had drank before."—Pepys's Diary. [Both Ld. Braybrooke (4th ed. i. 110) and Wheatley (i. 249) read tee, and give the date as Sept. 25.]
1667.—(June) "28th.... Home and there find my wife making of tea; a drink which Mr. Pelling, the Potticary, tells her is good for her cold and defluxions."—Ibid. [Wheatley, vi. 398].
1672.—"There is among our people, and particularly among the womankind a great abuse of Thee, not only that too much is drunk ... but this is also an evil custom to drink it with a full stomach; it is better and more wholesome to make use of it when the process of digestion is pretty well finished.... It is also a great folly to use sugar candy with Thee."—Baldaeus, Germ. ed. 179. (This author devotes five columns to tea, and its use and abuse in India).
1677.—"Planta dicitur Chà, vel ... Cià, ... cujus usus in Chinae claustris nescius in Europae quoque paulatim sese insinuare attentat.... Et quamvis Turcarum Cave (see COFFEE) et Mexicanorum Ciocolata eundem praestent effectum, Cià tamen, quam nonulli quoque Te vocant, ea multum superat," etc.—Kircher, China Illust. 180.
" "Maer de Ciâ (of Thee) sonder achting op eenije tijt te hebben, is novit schadelijk."—Vermeulen, 30.
1683.—"Lord Russell ... went into his chamber six or seven times in the morning, and prayed by himself, and then came out to Tillotson and me; he drunk a little tea and some sherry."—Burnet, Hist. of Own Time, Oxford ed. 1823, ii. 375.
1683.—
"Venus her Myrtle, Phœbus has his Bays;
Tea both excels which She[265] vouchsafes to praise,
The best of Queens, and best of Herbs we owe
{908a}To that bold Nation which the Way did show
To the fair Region where the Sun does rise,
Whose rich Productions we so justly prize."—Waller.
1690.—"... Of all the followers of Mahomet ... none are so rigidly Abstemious as the Arabians of Muscatt.... For Tea and Coffee, which are judg'd the privileg'd Liquors of all the Mahometans, as well as Turks, as those of Persia, India, and other parts of Arabia, are condemned by them as unlawful...."—Ovington, 427.
1726.—"I remember well how in 1681 I for the first time in my life drank thee at the house of an Indian Chaplain, and how I could not understand how sensible men could think it a treat to drink what tasted no better than hay-water."—Valentijn, v. 190.
1789.—
"And now her vase a modest Naiad fills
With liquid crystal from her pebbly rills;
Piles the dry cedar round her silver urn,
(Bright climbs the blaze, the crackling faggots burn).
Culls the green herb of China's envy'd bowers,
In gaudy cups the steaming treasure pours;
And sweetly smiling, on her bended knee,
Presents the fragrant quintessence of Tea."
Darwin, Botanic Garden, Loves of the Plants, Canto ii.
1844.—"The Polish word for tea, Herbata, signifies more properly 'herb,' and in fact there is little more of the genuine Chinese beverage in the article itself than in its name, so that we often thought with longing of the delightful Russian Tshaï, genuine in word and fact."—J. I. Kohl, Austria, p. 444.
The following are some of the names given in the market to different kinds of tea, with their etymologies.
1. (TEA), BOHEA. This name is from the Wu-i (dialectically Bú-î)-shan Mountains in the N.W. of Fuh-kien, one of the districts most famous for its black tea. In Pope's verse, as Crawfurd points out, Bohea stands for a tea in use among fashionable people. Thus:
"To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea,
To muse, and spill her solitary tea."
Epistle to Mrs Teresa Blount.
[The earliest examples in the N.E.D. carry back the use of the word to the first years of the 18th century.]
1711.—"There is a parcel of extraordinary fine Bohee Tea to be sold at 26s. per Pound, at the sign of the Barber's Pole, next door to the Brazier's Shop in Southampton Street in the Strand."—Advt. in the Spectator of April 2, 1711.
1711.—
"Oh had I rather unadmired remained
On some lone isle or distant northern land;
Where the gilt chariot never marks the way,
Where none learn ombre, none e'er taste bohea."
Belinda, in Rape of the Lock, iv. 153.
The last quotation, and indeed the first also, shows that the word was then pronounced Bohay. At a later date Bohea sank to be the market name of one of the lowest qualities of tea, and we believe it has ceased altogether to be a name quoted in the tea-market. The following quotations seem to show that it was the general name for "black-tea."
1711.—"Bohea is of little Worth among the Moors and Gentoos of India, Arrabs and Persians ... that of 45 Tale (see TAEL) would not fetch the Price of green Tea of 10 Tale a Pecull."—Lockyer, 116.
1721.—
"Where Indus and the double Ganges flow,
On odorif'rous plains the leaves do grow,
Chief of the treat, a plant the boast of fame,
Sometimes called green, Bohea's the greater name."
Allan Ramsay's Poems, ed. 1800, i. 213-14.
1726.—"Anno 1670 and 1680 there was knowledge only of Boey Tea and Green Tea, but later they speak of a variety of other sorts ... Congo ... Pego ... Tongge, Rosmaryn Tea, rare and very dear."—Valentijn, iv. 14.
1727.—"In September they strip the Bush of all its Leaves, and, for Want of warm dry Winds to cure it, are forced to lay it on warm Plates of Iron or Copper, and keep it stirring gently, till it is dry, and that Sort is called Bohea."—A. Hamilton, ii. 289; [ed. 1744, ii. 288].
But Zedler's Lexicon (1745) in a long article on Thee gives Thee Bohea as "the worst sort of all." The other European trade-names, according to Zedler, were Thee-Peco, Congo which the Dutch called the best, but Thee Cancho was better still and dearer, and Chaucon best of all.
2. (TEA) CAMPOY, a black tea also. Kam-pui, the Canton pron. of the characters Kien-pei, "select-dry (over a fire)."
3. (TEA) CONGOU (a black tea). This is Kang-hu (tê) the Amoy pronunciation of the characters Kung-fu, 'work or labour.' [Mr. Pratt (9 ser. N. & Q. iv. 26) writes: "The N.E.D. {909a}under Congou derives it from the standard Chinese Kung-fu (which happens also to be the Cantonese spelling); 'the omission of the f,' we are told, 'is the foreigner's corruption.' It is nothing of the kind. The Amoy name for this tea is Kong-hu, so that the omission of the f is due to the local Chinese dialect."]
4. HYSON (a green tea). This is He- (hei and ai in the south) -ch'un, 'bright spring,' [which Mr. Ball (Things Chinese, 586) writes yu-ts'in, 'before the rain'], characters which some say formed the hong name of a tea-merchant named Le, who was in the trade in the dist. of Hiu-ning (S.W. of Hang-chau) about 1700; others say that He-chun was Le's daughter, who was the first to separate the leaves, so as to make what is called Hyson. [Mr. Ball says that it is so called, "the young hyson being half-opened leaves plucked in April before the spring rains."]
c. 1772.—
"And Venus, goddess of the eternal smile,
Knowing that stormy brows but ill become
Fair patterns of her beauty, hath ordained
Celestial Tea;—a fountain that can cure
The ills of passion, and can free from frowns.
* * * * *
To her, ye fair! in adoration bow!
Whether at blushing morn, or dewy eve,
Her smoking cordials greet your fragrant board
With Hyson, or Bohea, or Congo crown'd."
R. Fergusson, Poems.
5. OOLONG (bl. tea). Wu-lung, 'black dragon'; respecting which there is a legend to account for the name. ["A black snake (and snakes are sometimes looked upon as dragons in China) was coiled round a plant of this tea, and hence the name" (Ball, op. cit. 586).]
6. PEKOE (do.). Pak-ho, Canton pron. of characters pŏh-hao, 'white-down.'
7. POUCHONG (do.). Pao-chung, 'fold-sort.' So called from its being packed in small paper packets, each of which is supposed to be the produce of one choice tea-plant. Also called Padre-souchong, because the priests in {909b}the Wu-i hills and other places prepare and pack it.
8. SOUCHONG (do.). Siu-chung, Canton for Siao-chung, 'little-sort.'
1781.—"Les Nations Européennes retirent de la Chine des thés connus sous les noms de thé bouy, thé vert, et thé saothon."—Sonnerat, ii. 249.
9. TWANKAY (green tea). From T'un-k'i, the name of a mart about 15 m. S.W. of Hwei-chau-fu in Ngan-hwei. Bp. Moule says (perhaps after W. Williams?) from T'un-k'i, name of a stream near Yen-shau-fu in Chi-kiang. [Mr. Pratt (loc. cit.) writes; "The Amoy Tun-ke is nearer, and the Cantonese Tun-kei nearer still, its second syllable being absolutely the same in sound as the English. The Twankay is a stream in the E. of the province of Nganhwui, where Twankay tea grows."] Twankay is used by Theodore Hook as a sort of slang for 'tea.'
10. YOUNG HYSON. This is called by the Chinese Yü-t'sien, 'rain-before,' or 'Yu-before,' because picked before Kuh-yu, a term falling about 20th April (see HYSON above). According to Giles it was formerly called, in trade, Uchain, which seems to represent the Chinese name. In an "Account of the Prices at which Teas have been put up to Sale, that arrived in England in 1784, 1785" (MS. India Office Records) the Teas are (from cheaper to dearer):—
"Bohea Tea,
Congou,
Souchong,
Singlo (?),
Hyson."
TEA-CADDY, s. This name, in common English use for a box to contain tea for the daily expenditure of the household, is probably corrupted, as Crawfurd suggests, from catty, a weight of 1⅓ lb. (q.v.). A 'catty-box,' meaning a box holding a catty, might easily serve this purpose and lead to the name. This view is corroborated by a quotation which we have given under caddy (q.v.) A friend adds the remark that in his youth 'Tea-caddy' was a Londoner's name for Harley Street, due to the number of E.I. Directors and proprietors supposed to inhabit that district.
TEAPOY, s. A small tripod table. This word is often in England imagined to have some connection with tea, and hence, in London shops for japanned ware and the like, a teapoy means a tea-chest fixed on legs. But this is quite erroneous. Tipāī is a Hindustāni, or perhaps rather an Anglo-Hindustāni word for a tripod, from Hind. tīn, 3, and Pers. pāē, 'foot.' The legitimate word from the Persian is sipāī (properly sihpāya), and the legitimate Hindi word tirpad or tripad, but tipāī or tepoy was probably originated by some European in analogy with the familiar charpoy (q.v.) or 'four-legs,' possibly from inaccuracy, possibly from the desire to avoid confusion with another very familiar word sepoy, seapoy. [Platts, however, gives tipāī as a regular Hind. word, Skt. tri-pād-ikā.] The word is applied in India not only to a three-legged table (or any very small table, whatever number of legs it has), but to any tripod, as to the tripod-stands of surveying instruments, or to trestles in carpentry. Sihpāya occurs in 'Ali of Yezd's history of Timur, as applied to the trestles used by Timur in bridging over the Indus (Elliot, iii. 482). A teapoy is called in Chinese by a name having reference to tea: viz. Ch'a-chi'rh. It has 4 legs.
[c. 1809.—"(Dinajpoor) Sepaya, a wooden stand for a lamp or candle with three feet."—Buchanan, Eastern India, ii. 945.]
1844.—"'Well, to be sure, it does seem odd—very odd;'—and the old gentleman chuckled,—'most odd to find a person who don't know what a tepoy is.... Well, then, a tepoy or tinpoy is a thing with three feet, used in India to denote a little table, such as that just at your right.'
"'Why, that table has four legs,' cried Peregrine.
"'It's a tepoy all the same,' said Mr. Havethelacks."—Peregrine Pulteney, i. 112.
TEAK, s. The tree, and timber of the tree, known to botanists as Tectona grandis, L., N.O. Verbenaceae. The word is Malayāl. tekka, Tam. tekku. No doubt this name was adopted owing to the fact that Europeans first became acquainted with the wood in Malabar, which is still one of the two great sources of supply; Pegu being the other. The Skt. name of the tree is śāka, whence the modern Hind. name sāgwān or sāgūn and the Mahr. śāg. From this last probably was {910b}taken sāj, the name of teak in Arabic and Persian. And we have doubtless the same word in the σαγαλίνα of the Periplus, one of the exports from Western India, a form which may be illustrated by the Mahr. adj. sāgalī, 'made of the teak, belonging to teak.' The last fact shows, in some degree, how old the export of teak is from India. Teak beams, still undecayed, exist in the walls of the great palace of the Sassanid Kings at Seleucia or Ctesiphon, dating from the middle of the 6th century. [See Birdwood, First Letter Book, Intro. XXIX.] Teak has continued to recent times to be imported into Egypt. See Forskal, quoted by Royle (Hindu Medicine, 128). The gopher-wood of Genesis is translated sāj in the Arabic version of the Pentateuch (Royle). [It was probably cedar (see Encycl. Bibl. s.v.)]
Teak seems to have been hardly known in Gangetic India in former days. We can find no mention of it in Baber (which however is indexless), and the only mention we can find in the Āīn, is in a list of the weights of a cubic yard of 72 kinds of wood, where the name "Ságaun" has not been recognised as teak by the learned translator (see Blochmann's E.T. i. p. 228).
c. A.D. 80.—"In the innermost part of this Gulf (the Persian) is the Port of Apologos, lying near Pasine Charax and the river Euphrates.
"Sailing past the mouth of the Gulf, after a course of 6 days you reach another port of Persia called Omana. Thither they are wont to despatch from Barygaza, to both these ports of Persia, great vessels with brass, and timbers and beams of teak (ζύλων σαγαλίνων καὶ δοκῶν), and horns and spars of shisham (see SISSOO) (σασαμίνων), and of ebony...."—Peripl. Maris Erythr. § 35-36.
c. 800.—(under Hārūn al Rashīd) "Faẓl continued his story '... I heard loud wailing from the house of Abdallah ... they told me he had been struck with the judām, that his body was swollen and all black.... I went to Rashīd to tell him, but I had not finished when they came to say Abdallah was dead. Going out at once I ordered them to hasten the obsequies.... I myself said the funeral prayer. As they let down the bier a slip took place, and the bier and earth fell in together; an intolerable stench arose ... a second slip took place. I then called for planks of teak (sāj)...."—Quotation in Maṣ'ūdī, Prairies d'Or, vi. 298-299.
c. 880.—"From Kol to Sindān, where they collect teak-wood (sāj) and cane, 18 {911a}farsakhs."—Ibn Khurdādba, in J. As. S. VI. tom. v. 284.
c. 940.—"... The teak-tree (sāj). This tree, which is taller than the date-palm, and more bulky than the walnut, can shelter under its branches a great number of men and cattle, and you may judge of its dimensions by the logs that arrive, of their natural length, at the depôts of Basra, of 'Irāk, and of Egypt...."—Māṣ'ūdī, iii. 12.
Before 1200.—Abu'l-ḍhali' the Sindian, describing the regions of Hind, has these verses:
* * * * *
"By my life! it is a land where, when the rain falls,
Jacinths and pearls spring up for him who wants ornaments.
There too are produced musk and camphor and ambergris and agila,
* * * * *
And ivory there, and teak (al-sāj) and aloeswood and sandal...."
Quoted by Kazwini, in Gildemeister, 217-218.
The following order, in a King's Letter to the Goa Government, no doubt refers to Pegu teak, though not naming the particular timber:
1597.—"We enjoin you to be very vigilant not to allow the Turks to export any timber from the Kingdom of Pegu, nor from that of Achem (see ACHEEN), and you must arrange how to treat this matter, particularly with the King of Achem."—In Archiv. Port. Orient. fasc. ii. 669.
1602.—"... It was necessary in order to appease them, to give a promise in writing that the body should not be removed from the town, but should have public burial in our church in sight of everybody; and with this assurance it was taken in solemn procession and deposited in a box of teak (teca), which is a wood not subject to decay...."—Sousa, Oriente Conquist. (1710), ii. 265.
[ " "Of many of the roughest thickets of bamboos and of the largest and best wood in the world, that is teca."—Couto, Dec. VII. Bk. vi. ch. 6. He goes on to explain that all the ships and boats made either by Moors or Gentiles since the Portuguese came to India, were of this wood which came from the inexhaustible forests at the back of Damaun.]
1631.—Bontius gives a tolerable cut of the foliage, &c., of the Teak-tree, but writing in the Archipelago does not use that name, describing it under the title "Quercus Indica, Kiati Malaiis dicta."—Lib. vi. cap. 16. On this Rheede, whose plate of the tree is, as usual, excellent (Hortus Malabaricus, iv. tab. 27), observes justly that the teak has no resemblance to an oak-tree, and also that the Malay name is not Kiati but Jati. Kiati seems to be a mistake of some kind growing out of Kayu-jati, 'Teak-wood.'
1644.—"Hã nestas terras de Damam muyta e boa madeyra de Teca, a milhor de toda a India, e tambem de muyta parte do mundo, porque com ser muy fasil de laurar he perduravel, e particullarmente nam lhe tocando agoa."—Bocarro, MS.
1675.—"At Cock-crow we parted hence and observed that the Sheds here were round thatched and lined with broad Leaves of Teke (the Timber Ships are built with) in Fashion of a Bee-hive."—Fryer, 142.
" "... Teke by the Portuguese, Sogwan by the Moors, is the firmest Wood they have for Building ... in Height the lofty Pine exceeds it not, nor the sturdy Oak in Bulk and Substance.... This Prince of the Indian Forest was not so attractive, though mightily glorious, but that...."—Ibid. 178.
1727.—"Gundavee is next, where good Quantities of Teak Timber are cut, and exported, being of excellent Use in building of Houses or Ships."—A. Hamilton, i. 178; [ed. 1744].
1744.—"Tecka is the name of costly wood which is found in the Kingdom of Martaban in the East Indies, and which never decays."—Zeidler, Univ. Lexicon, s.v.
1759.—"They had endeavoured to burn the Teak Timbers also, but they lying in a swampy place, could not take fire."—Capt. Alves, Report on Loss of Negrais, in Dalrymple, i. 349.
c. 1760.—"As to the wood it is a sort called Teak, to the full as durable as oak."—Grose, i. 108.
1777.—"Experience hath long since shewn, that ships built with oak, and joined together with wooden trunnels, are by no means so well calculated to resist the extremes of heat and damp, in the tropical latitudes of Asia, as the ships which are built in India of tekewood, and bound with iron spikes and bolts."—Price's Tracts, i. 191.
1793.—"The teek forests, from whence the marine yard at Bombay is furnished with that excellent species of ship-timber, lie along the western side of the Gaut mountains ... on the north and north-east of Basseen.... I cannot close this subject without remarking the unpardonable negligence we are guilty of in delaying to build teak ships of war for the service of the Indian seas."—Rennell, Memoir, 3rd ed. 260.
[1800.—"Tayca, Tectona Robusta."—Buchanan, Mysore, i. 26.]
TEE, s. The metallic decoration, generally gilt and hung with tinkling bells, on the top of a dagoba in Indo-Chinese countries, which represents the chatras [chhattras] or umbrellas which in ancient times, as royal emblems, crowned these structures. Burm. h'ti, 'an umbrella.'
1800.—"... In particular the Tee, or umbrella, which, composed of open iron-work, {912a}crowned the spire, had been thrown down."—Symes, i. 193.
1855.—"... gleaming in its white plaster, with numerous pinnacles and tall central spire, we had seen it (Gaudapalen Temple at Pugan) from far down the Irawadi rising like a dim vision of Milan Cathedral.... It is cruciform in plan ... exhibiting a massive basement with porches, and rising above in a pyramidal gradation of terraces, crowned by a spire and htee. The latter has broken from its stays at one side, and now leans over almost horizontally...."—Yule, Mission to Ava, 1858, p. 42.
1876.—"... a feature known to Indian archaeologists as a Tee...."—Fergusson, Ind. and East. Archit. 64.
TEEK, adj. Exact, precise, punctual; also parsimonious, [a meaning which Platts does not record]. Used in N. India. Hind. ṭhīk.
[1843.—"They all feel that the good old rule of right (teek), as long as a man does his duty well, can no longer be relied upon."—G. W. Johnson, Stranger in India, i. 290.]
[1878.—"... 'it is necessary to send an explanation to the magistrate, and the return does not look so thêk' (a word expressing all excellence)."—Life in the Mofussil, i. 253.]
TEERUT, TEERTHA, s. Skt. and Hind. tīrth, tīrtha. A holy place of pilgrimage and of bathing for the good of the soul, such as Hurdwar, or the confluence at Praag (Allahabad).
[1623.—"The Gentiles call it Ramtirt, that is, Holy Water."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 205.]
c. 1790.—"Au temple l'enfant est reçue par les devedaschies (Deva-dasi) des mains de ses parens, et après l'avoir baignée dans le tirtha ou étang du temple, elles lui mettent des vêtemens neufs...."—Haafner, ii. 114.
[1858.—"He then summoned to the place no less than three crores and half, or thirty millions and half of teeruts, or angels (sic) who preside each over his special place of religious worship."—Sleeman, Journey through Oudh, ii. 4.]
TEHR, TAIR, &c., s. The wild goat of the Himālaya; Hemitragus jemlaicus, Jerdon, [Blanford, Mammalia, 509]. In Nepāl it is called jhāral. (See SURROW).
TEJPAT, s. Hind. tejpāt, Skt. teja-patra, 'pungent leaf.' The native name for malabathrum.
1833.—"Last night as I was writing a long description of the tēz-pāt, the leaf of the cinnamon-tree, which humbly pickles beef, leaving the honour of crowning heroes {912b}to the Laurus nobilis...."—Wanderings of a Pilgrim, i. 278.
1872.—Tejpát is mentioned as sold by the village shopkeeper, in Govinda Samanta, i. 223.
(1) TELINGA, n.p. Hind. Tilangā, Skt. Tailanga. One of the people of the country east of the Deccan, and extending to the coast, often called, at least since the Middle Ages, Tiliñgāna or Tilangāna, sometimes Tiling or Tilang. Though it has not, perhaps, been absolutely established that this came from a form Triliñga, the habitual application of Tri-Kaliñga, apparently to the same region which in later days was called Tilinga, and the example of actual use of Triliñga, both by Ptolemy (though he carries us beyond the Ganges) and by a Tibetan author quoted below, do make this a reasonable supposition (see Bp. Caldwell's Dravidian Grammar, 2nd ed. Introd. pp. 30 seqq., and the article KLING in this book).
A.D. c. 150.—"Τρίγλυπτον, τὸ καὶ Τρίλιγγον Βασιλείον ... κ.τ.λ."—Ptolemy, vi. 2, 23.
1309.—"On Saturday the 10th of Sha'bán, the army marched from that spot, in order that the pure tree of Islám might be planted and flourish in the soil of Tilang, and the evil tree which had struck its roots deep, might be torn up by force.... When the blessed canopy had been fixed about a mile from Arangal (Warangal, N.E. of Hyderabad), the tents around the fort were pitched so closely that the head of a needle could not get between them."—Amīr Khusrū, in Elliot, iii. 80.
1321.—"In the year 721 H. the Sultán (Ghiyásu-ddín) sent his eldest son, Ulugh Khán, with a canopy and an army against Arangal and Tilang."—Ziá-uddín Barní, Ibid. 231.
c. 1335.—"For every mile along the road there are three dāwāt (post stations) ... and so the road continues for six months' marching, till one reaches the countries of Tiling and Ma'bar...."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 192.
" In the list of provinces of India under the Sultan of Delhi, given by Shihāb-ud-dīn Dimishkī, we find both Talang and Talanj, probably through some mistake.—Not. et Exts. Pt. 1. 170-171.
c. 1590.—"Ṣūba Berār.... Its length from Batāla (or Patiāla) to Bairāgaṛh is 200 kuroh (or kos); its breadth from Bīdar to Hindia 180. On the east of Bairāgaṛh it marches with Bastar; on the north with Hindia; on the south with Tilingāna; on the west with Mahkarābād...."—Āīn (orig.) i. 476; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 228; and see 230, 237].
1608.—"In the southern lands of India since the day when the Turushkas (Turks, i.e. Mahommedans) conquered Magadha, many abodes of Learning were founded; and though they were inconsiderable, the continuance of instruction and exorcism was without interruption, and the Pandit who was called the Son of Men, dwelt in Kalinga, a part of Trilinga."—Tāranātha's H. of Buddhism (Germ. ed. of Schiefner), p. 264. See also 116, 158, 166.
c. 1614.—"Up to that time none of the zamíndárs of distant lands, such as the Rájá of Tilang, Pegu, and Malabar, had ventured upon disobedience or rebellion."—Firishta, in Elliot, vi. 549.
1793.—"Tellingana, of which Warangoll was the capital, comprehended the tract lying between the Kistnah and Godavery Rivers, and east of Visiapour...."—Rennell's Memoir, 3rd ed. p. [cxi.]
(2) TELINGA, s. This term in the 18th century was frequently used in Bengal as synonymous with sepoy, or a native soldier disciplined and clothed in quasi-European fashion, [and is still commonly used by natives to indicate a sepoy or armed policeman in N. India], no doubt because the first soldiers of that type came to Bengal from what was considered to be the Telinga country, viz. Madras.
1758.—"... the latter commanded a body of Hindu soldiers, armed and accoutred and disciplined in the European manner of fighting; I mean those soldiers that are become so famous under the name of Talingas."—Seir Mutaqherin, ii. 92.
c. 1760.—"... Sepoys, sometimes called Tellingas."—Grose, in his Glossary, see vol. I. xiv.
1760.—"300 Telingees are run away, and entered into the Beerboom Rajah's service."—In Long, 235; see also 236, 237, and (1761) p. 258, "Tellingers."
c. 1765.—"Somro's force, which amounted to 15 or 16 field-pieces and 6000 or 7000 of those foot soldiers called Talinghas, and which are armed with flint muskets, and accoutred as well as disciplined in the Frenghi or European manner."—Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 254.
1786.—"... Gardi (see GARDEE), which is now the general name of Sipahies all over India, save Bengal ... where they are stiled Talingas, because the first Sipahees that came in Bengal (and they were imported in 1757 by Colonel Clive) were all Talingas or Telougous born ... speaking hardly any language but their native...."—Note by Tr. of Seir Mutaqherin, ii. 93.
c. 1805.—"The battalions, according to the old mode of France, were called after the names of cities and forts.... The Telingas, composed mostly of Hindoos, from Oude, were disciplined according to the {913b}old English exercise of 1780...."—Sketch of the Regular Corps, &c., in Service of Native Princes, by Major Lewis Ferdinand Smith, p. 50.
1827.—"You are a Sahib Angrezie.... I have been a Telinga ... in the Company's service, and have eaten their salt. I will do your errand."—Sir W. Scott, The Surgeon's Daughter, ch. xiii.
1883.—"We have heard from natives whose grandfathers lived in those times, that the Oriental portions of Clive's army were known to the Bengalis of Nuddea as Telingas, because they came, or were supposed to have accompanied him from Telingana or Madras."—Saty. Review, Jan. 29, p. 120.
TELOOGOO, n.p. The first in point of diffusion, and the second in culture and copiousness, of the Dravidian languages of the Indian Peninsula. It is "spoken all along the eastern coast of the Peninsula, from the neighbourhood of Pulicat" (24 m. N. of Madras) "where it supersedes Tamil, to Chicacole, where it begins to yield to the Oriya (see OORIYA), and inland it prevails as far as the eastern boundary of the Marâtha country and Mysore, including within its range the 'Ceded Districts' and Karnûl (see KURNOOL), a considerable part of the territories of the Nizam ... and a portion of the Nâgpûr country and Goṇḍvâna" (Bp. Caldwell's Dravid. Gram. Introd. p. 29). Telugu is the name given to the language of the people themselves (other forms being, according to Bp. Caldwell, Telunga, Telinga, Tailinga, Tenugu, and Tenungu), as the language of Telingāna (see TELINGA (1)). It is this language (as appears in the passage from Fryer) that used to be, perhaps sometimes is, called Gentoo at Madras. [Also see BADEGA.]
1673.—"Their Language they call generally Gentu ... the peculiar name of their speech is Telinga."—Fryer, 33.
1793.—"The Tellinga language is said to be in use, at present, from the River Pennar in the Carnatic, to Orissa, along the coast, and inland to a very considerable distance."—Rennell, Memoir, 3rd ed. p. [cxi].
TEMBOOL, Betel-leaf. Skt. tāmbūla, adopted in Pers. as tāmbūl, and in Ar. al-tambūl. [It gives its name to the Tambolis or Tamolis, sellers of betel in the N. Indian bazars.]
1298.—"All the people of this city, as well as the rest of India, have a custom of perpetually keeping in the mouth a certain {914a}leaf called Tembul...."—Marco Polo, ii. 358.
1498.—"And he held in his left hand a very great cup of gold as high as a half almude pot ... into which he spat a certain herb which the men of this country chew for solace, and which herb they call atambor."—Roteiro de V. da Gama, 59.
1510.—"He also eats certain leaves of herbs, which are like the leaves of the sour orange, called by some tamboli."—Varthema, 110.
1563.—"Only you should know that Avicenna calls the betre (Betel) tembul, which seems a word somewhat corrupted, since everybody pronounces it tambul, and not tembul."—Garcia, f. 37h.
TENASSERIM, n.p. A city and territory on the coast of the Peninsula of Further India. It belonged to the ancient kingdom of Pegu, and fell with that to Ava. When we took from the latter the provinces east and south of the Delta of the Irawadi, after the war of 1824-26, these were officially known as "the Martaban and Tenasserim Province," or often as "the Tenasserim Provinces." We have the name probably from the Malay form Tanasari. We do not know to what language the name originally belongs. The Burmese call it Ta-nen-thā-ri. ["The name Tenasserim (Malay Tanah-sari), 'the land of happiness or delight,' was long ago given by the Malays to the Burma province, which still keeps it, the Burmese corruption being Tanang-sari" (Gray, on Pyrard de Laval, quoted below).]
c. 1430.—"Relicta Taprobane ad urbem Thenasserim supra ostium fluvii eodem nomine vocitati diebus XVI tempestate actus est. Quae regio et elephantis et verzano (brazil-wood) abundat."—Nic. Conti, in Poggio de Var. Fort. lib. iv.
1442.—"The inhabitants of the shores of the Ocean come thither (to Hormuz) from the countries of Chīn (China), Jāvah, Bangāla, the cities of Zirbād (q.v.), of Tenaseri, of Sokotara, of Shahrinao (see SARNAU), of the Isles of Dīwah Mahal (Maldives)."—Abdur-razzāk, in Not. et Exts. xiv. 429.
1498.—"Tenaçar is peopled by Christians, and the King is also a Christian ... in this land is much brasyll, which makes a fine vermilion, as good as the grain, and it costs here 3 cruzados a bahar, whilst in Quayro (Cairo) it costs 60; also there is here aloes-wood, but not much."—Roteiro de V. da Gama, 110.
1501.—Tanaser appears in the list of places in the East Indies of which Amerigo Vespucci had heard from the Portuguese {914b}fleet at C. Verde. Printed in Baldelli Boni's Il Milione, pp. liii. seqq.
1506.—"At Tenazar grows all the verzi (brazil), and it costs 1½ ducats the baar (bahar), equal to 4 kantars. This place, though on the coast, is on the mainland. The King is a Gentile; and thence come pepper, cinnamon, galanga, camphor that is eaten, and camphor that is not eaten.... This is indeed the first mart of spices in India."—Leonardo Ca' Masser, in Archiv. Stor. Ital. p. 28.
1510.—"The city of Tarnassari is situated near the sea, etc."—Varthema, 196. This adventurer's account of Tenasserim is an imposture. He describes it by implication as in India Proper, somewhere to the north of Coromandel.
1516.—"And from the Kingdom of Peigu as far as a city which has a seaport, and is named Tanasery, there are a hundred leagues...."—Barbosa, 188.
1568.—"The Pilot told vs that wee were by his altitude not farre from a citie called Tanasary, in the Kingdom of Pegu."—C. Frederike, in Hakl. ii. 359. See Lancaster.
c. 1590.—"In Kambayat (Cambay) a Nákhuda (Nacoda) gets 800 R.... In Pegu and Dahnasari, he gets half as much again as in Cambay."—Āīn, i. 281.
[1598.—"Betweene two Islandes the coast runneth inwards like a bow, wherein lyeth the towne of Tanassarien."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 103. In the same page he writes Tanassaria.
[1608.—"The small quantities they have here come from Tannaserye."—Danvers, Letters, i. 22.
[c. 1610.—"Some Indians call it (Ceylon) Tenasirin, signifying land of delights, or earthly paradise."—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 140, with Gray's note (Hak. Soc.) quoted above.]
1727.—"Mr. Samuel White was made Shawbandaar (Shabunder) or Custom-Master at Merjee (Mergui) and Tanacerin, and Captain Williams was Admiral of the King's Navy."—A. Hamilton, ii. 64; [ed. 1744].
1783.—"Tannaserim...."—Forrest, V. to Mergui, 4.
TERAI, TERYE, s. Hind. tarāī, 'moist (land)' from tar, 'moist' or 'green.' [Others, however, connect it with tara, tala, 'beneath (the Himālaya).'] The term is specially applied to a belt of marshy and jungly land which runs along the foot of the Himālaya north of the Ganges, being that zone in which the moisture which has sunk into the talus of porous material exudes. A tract on the south side of the Ganges, now part of Bhāgalpūr, was also formerly known as the Jungle-terry (q.v.).
1793.—"Helloura, though standing very little below the level of Cheeria Ghat's top {915a}is nevertheless comprehended in the Turry or Turryani of Nepaul ... Turryani properly signifies low marshy lands, and is sometimes applied to the flats lying below the hills in the interior of Nepaul, as well as the low tract bordering immediately on the Company's northern frontier."—Kirkpatrick's Nepaul (1811), p. 40.
1824.—"Mr. Boulderson said he was sorry to learn from the raja that he did not consider the unhealthy season of the Terrai yet over ... I asked Mr. B. if it were true that the monkeys forsook these woods during the unwholesome months. He answered that not the monkeys only, but everything which had the breath of life instinctively deserts them from the beginning of April to October. The tigers go up to the hills, the antelopes and wild hogs make incursions into the cultivated plain ... and not so much as a bird can be heard or seen in the frightful solitude."—Heber, ed. 1844, 250-251.
[The word is used as an adj. to describe a severe form of malarial fever, and also a sort of double felt hat, worn when the sun is not so powerful as to require the use of a sola topee.
[1879.—"Remittent has been called Jungle Fever, Terai Fever, Bengal Fever, &c., from the locality in which it originated...."—Moore, Family Med. for India, 211.
[1880.—"A Terai hat is sufficient for a Collector."—Ali Baba, 85.]
THAKOOR, s. Hind. ṭhākur, from Skt. ṭhakkura, 'an idol, a deity.' Used as a term of respect, Lord, Master, &c., but with a variety of specific applications, of which the most familiar is as the style of Rājpūt nobles. It is also in some parts the honorific designation of a barber, after the odd fashion which styles a tailor khalīfa (see CALEEFA); a bihishtī, jama'-dār (see JEMADAR); a sweeper, mehtar. And in Bengal it is the name of a Brahman family, which its members have Anglicised as Tagore, of whom several have been men of character and note, the best known being Dwārkanāth Tagore, "a man of liberal opinions and enterprising character" (Wilson), who died in London in 1840.
[c. 1610.—"The nobles in blood (in the Maldives) add to their name Tacourou."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 217.
[1798.—"The Thacur (so Rajput chieftains are called) was naked from the waist upwards, except the sacrificial thread or scarf on his shoulders and a turban on his head."—L. of Colebrooke, 462.
[1881.—"After the sons have gone to their respective offices, the mother changing {915b}her clothes retires into the thakurghar (the place of worship), and goes through her morning service...."—S. C. Bose, The Hindoos as they are, 13.]
THERMANTIDOTE, s. This learned word ("heat-antidote") was applied originally, we believe, about 1830-32 to the invention of the instrument which it designates, or rather to the application of the instrument, which is in fact a winnowing machine fitted to a window aperture, and incased in wet tatties (q.v.), so as to drive a current of cooled air into a house during hot, dry weather. We have a dim remembrance that the invention was ascribed to Dr. Spilsbury.
1831.—"To the 21st of June, this oppressive weather held its sway; our only consolation grapes, iced-water, and the thermantidote, which answers admirably, almost too well, as on the 22d. I was laid up with rheumatic fever and lumbago, occasioned ... by standing or sleeping before it."—Wanderings of a Pilgrim, i. 208.
[Mrs Parkes saw for the first time a thermantidote at Cawnpore in 1830.—Ibid. i. 134.]
1840.—"... The thermometer at 112° all day in our tents, notwithstanding tatties, phermanticlotes,[266] and every possible invention that was likely to lessen the stifling heat."—Osborne, Court and Camp of Runjeet Singh, 132.
1853.—"... then came punkahs by day, and next punkahs by night, and then tatties, and then therm-antidotes, till at last May came round again, and found the unhappy Anglo-Indian world once more surrounded with all the necessary but uncomfortable sweltering panoply of the hot weather."—Oakfield, i. 263-4.
1878.—"They now began (c. 1840) to have the benefit of thermantidotes, which however were first introduced in 1831; the name of the inventor is not recorded."—Calcutta Rev. cxxiv. 718.
1880.—"... low and heavy punkahs swing overhead; a sweet breathing of wet khaskhas grass comes out of the thermantidote."—Sir Ali Baba, 112.
THUG, s. Hind. ṭhag, Mahr. ṭhak, Skt. sṭhaga, 'a cheat, a swindler.' And this is the only meaning given and illustrated in R. Drummond's Illustrations of Guzerattee, &c. (1808). But it has acquired a specific meaning, which cannot be exhibited more precisely or tersely than by Wilson: {916a}"Latterly applied to a robber and assassin of a peculiar class, who sallying forth in a gang ... and in the character of wayfarers, either on business or pilgrimage, fall in with other travellers on the road, and having gained their confidence, take a favourable opportunity of strangling them by throwing their handkerchiefs round their necks, and then plundering them and burying their bodies." The proper specific designation of these criminals was phānsīgar or phānsigar, from phansī, 'a noose.'
According to Mackenzie (in As. Res. xiii.) the existence of gangs of these murderers was unknown to Europeans till shortly after the capture of Seringapatam in 1799, when about 100 were apprehended in Bangalore. But Fryer had, a century earlier, described a similar gang caught and executed near Surat. The Phānsigars (under that name) figured prominently in an Anglo-Indian novel called, we think, "The English in India," which one of the present writers read in early boyhood, but cannot now trace. It must have been published between 1826 and 1830.
But the name of Thug first became thoroughly familiar not merely to that part of the British public taking an interest in Indian affairs, but even to the mass of Anglo-Indian society, through the publication of the late Sir William Sleeman's book "Ramaseeana; or a Vocabulary of the peculiar language used by the Thugs, with an Introduction and Appendix, descriptive of that Fraternity, and of the Measures which have been adopted by the Supreme Government of India for its Suppression," Calcutta, 1836; and by an article on it which appeared in the Edinburgh Review, for Jan. 1837, (lxiv. 357). One of Col. Meadows Taylor's Indian romances also, Memoirs of a Thug (1839), has served to make the name and system familiar. The suppression of the system, for there is every reason to believe that it was brought to an end, was organised in a masterly way by Sir W. (then Capt.) Sleeman, a wise and admirable man, under the government and support of Lord William Bentinck. [The question of the Thugs and their modern successors has been again discussed in the Quarterly Review, Oct. 1901.]
c. 1665.—"Les Voleurs de ce pais-là sont les plus adroits du monde; ils ont l'usage d'un certain lasset à noeud coulant, qu'ils savent jetter si subtilement au col d'un homme, quand ils sont à sa portée, qu'ils ne le manquent jamais; en sorte qu'en un moment ils l'étranglent ..." &c.—Thevenot, v. 123.
1673.—"They were Fifteen, all of a Gang, who used to lurk under Hedges in narrow Lanes, and as they found Opportunity, by a Device of a Weight tied to a Cotton Bow-string made of Guts, ... they used to throw it upon Passengers, so that winding it about their Necks, they pulled them from their Beasts and dragging them upon the Ground strangled them, and possessed themselves of what they had ... they were sentenced to Lex Talionis, to be hang'd; wherefore being delivered to the Catwal or Sheriff's Men, they led them two Miles with Ropes round their Necks to some Wild Date-trees: In their way thither they were chearful, and went singing, and smoaking Tobacco ... as jolly as if going to a Wedding; and the Young Lad now ready to be tied up, boasted, That though he were not 14 Years of Age, he had killed his Fifteen Men...."—Fryer, 97.
1785.—"Several men were taken up for a most cruel method of robbery and murder, practised on travellers, by a tribe called phanseegurs, or stranglers ... under the pretence of travelling the same way, they enter into conversation with the strangers, share their sweetmeats, and pay them other little attentions, until an opportunity offers of suddenly throwing a rope round their necks with a slip-knot, by which they dexterously contrive to strangle them on the spot."—Forbes, Or. Mem. iv. 13; [2nd ed. ii. 397].
1808.—"Phanseeo. A term of abuse in Guzerat, applied also, truly, to thieves or robbers who strangle children in secret or travellers on the road."—R. Drummond, Illustrations, s.v.
1820.—"In the more northern parts of India these murderers are called Thegs, signifying deceivers."—As. Res. xiii. 250.
1823.—"The Thugs are composed of all castes, Mahommedans even were admitted: but the great majority are Hindus; and among these the Brahmins, chiefly of the Bundelcund tribes, are in the greatest numbers, and generally direct the operations of the different bands."—Malcolm, Central India, ii. 187.
1831.—"The inhabitants of Jubbulpore were this morning assembled to witness the execution of 25 Thugs.... The number of Thugs in the neighbouring countries is enormous; 115, I believe, belonged to the party of which 25 were executed, and the remainder are to be transported; and report says there are as many in Sauger Jail."—Wanderings of a Pilgrim, i. 201-202.
1843.—"It is by the command, and under the special protection of the most powerful goddesses that the Thugs join {917a}themselves to the unsuspecting traveller, make friends with him, slip the noose round his neck, plunge their knives in his eyes, hide him in the earth, and divide his money and baggage."—Macaulay, Speech on Gates of Somnauth.
1874.—"If a Thug makes strangling of travellers a part of his religion, we do not allow him the free exercise of it."—W. Newman, in Fortnightly Rev., N.S. xv. 181.
[Tavernier writes: "The remainder of the people, who do not belong to either of these four castes, are called Pauzecour." This word Mr. Ball (ii. 185) suggests to be equivalent to either pariah or phansigar. Here he is in error. Pauzecour is really Skt. Pancha-Gauḍa, the five classes of northern Brahmans, for which see Wilson, (Indian Caste, ii. 124 seqq.).]
TIBET, n.p. The general name of the vast and lofty table-land of which the Himālaya forms the southern marginal range, and which may be said roughly to extend from the Indus elbow, N.W. of Kashmīr, to the vicinity of Sining-fu in Kansuh (see SLING) and to Tatsienlu on the borders of Szechuen, the last a distance of 1800 miles. The origin of the name is obscure, but it came to Europe from the Mahommedans of Western Asia; its earliest appearance being in some of the Arab Geographies of the 9th century.
Names suggestive of Tibet are indeed used by the Chinese. The original form of these (according to our friend Prof. Terrien de la Couperie) was Tu-pot; a name which is traced to a prince so called, whose family reigned at Liang-chau, north of the Yellow R. (in modern Kansuh), but who in the 5th century was driven far to the south-west, and established in eastern Tibet a State to which he gave the name of Tu-pot, afterwards corrupted into Tu-poh and Tu-fan. We are always on ticklish ground in dealing with derivations from or through the Chinese. But it is doubtless possible, perhaps even probable, that these names passed into the western form Tibet, through the communication of the Arabs in Turkestan with the tribes on their eastern border. This may have some corroboration from the prevalence of the name Tibet, or some proximate form, among the Mongols, as we may gather both from Carpini {917b}and Rubruck in the 13th century (quoted below), and from Sanang Setzen, and the Mongol version of the Bodhimor several hundred years later. These latter write the name (as represented by I. J. Schmidt), Tūbet and Tōbōt.
[c. 590.—"Tobbat." See under INDIA.]
851.—"On this side of China are the countries of the Taghazghaz and the Khākān of Tibbat; and that is the termination of China on the side of the Turks."—Relation, &c., tr. par Reinaud, pt. i. p. 60.
c. 880.—"Quand un étranger arrive au Tibet (al-Tibbat), il éprouve, sans pouvoir s'en rendre compte, un sentiment de gaieté et de bien être qui persiste jusqu'au départ."—Ibn Khurdādba, in J. As. Ser. vi. tom. v. 522.
c. 910.—"The country in which lives the goat which produces the musk of China, and that which produces the musk of Tibbat are one and the same; only the Chinese get into their hands the goats which are nearest their side, and the people of Tibbat do likewise. The superiority of the musk of Tibbat over that of China is due to two causes; first, that the musk-goat on the Tibbat side of the frontier finds aromatic plants, whilst the tracts on the Chinese side only produce plants of a common kind."—Relation, &c., pt. 2, pp. 114-115.
c. 930.—"This country has been named Tibbat because of the establishment there of the Himyarites, the word thabat signifying to fix or establish oneself. That etymology is the most likely of all that have been proposed. And it is thus that Di'bal, son of 'Alī-al-Khuzā'ī, vaunts this fact in a poem, in which when disputing with Al-Kumair he exalts the descendants of Ḳaṭḷān above those of Nizāar, saying:
"'Tis they who have been famous by their writings at the gate of Merv,
And who were writers at the gate of Chīn,
'Tis they who have bestowed on Samarkand the name of Shamr,
And who have transported thither the Tibetans" (Al-Tubbatīna).[267]
Mas'ūdī, i. 352.
c. 976.—"From the sea to Tibet is 4 months' journey, and from the sea of Fārs to the country of Kanauj is 3 months' journey."—Ibn Haukal, in Elliot, i. 33.
c. 1020.—"Bhútesar is the first city on the borders of Tibet. There the language, costume, and appearance of the people are different. Thence to the top of the highest mountain, of which we spoke ... is a distance of 20 parasangs. From the top of it Tibet looks red and Hind black."—Al-Birūnī, in Elliot, i. 57.
1075.—"Τοῦ μόσχου, διάφορα εἴδη εἰσίν· ὦν ὁ κρείττων γίνεται ἐν πόλει τινὶ πολὺ τοῦ Χοράση ἀνατολικοτερα, λεγομένη Τουπάτα· ἔστι δὲ τὴν χροιὰν ὑπόξανθον· τοῦτου δὲ ἧπτον ὁ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰνδιάς μετακομιζόμενος· ῥέπει δὲ ἐπὶ τὸ μελάντερον· καὶ τούτου πάλιν ὑποδεέστερος ὁ ἀπὸ τῶν Σίνων ἀγόμενος· πάντες δε ἐν ὀμφαλῷ ἀπογεννῶνται ζώου τινὸς μονοκέρωτος μέγιστου ὁμοιόυ δορκάδος."—Symeon Seth, quoted by Bochart, Hieroz. III. xxvi.
1165.—"This prince is called in Arabic Sultan-al-Fars-al-Kábar ... and his empire extends from the banks of the Shat-al-Arab to the City of Samarkand ... and reaches as far as Thibet, in the forests of which country that quadruped is found which yields the musk."—Rabbi Benjamin, in Wright's Early Travels, 106.
c. 1200.—
"He went from Hindustan to the Tibat-land....
From Tibat he entered the boundaries of Chīn."
Sikandar Nāmah, E.T. by
Capt. H. W. Clarke, R.E., p. 585.
1247.—"Et dum reverteretur exercitus ille, videlicet Mongalorum, venit ad terram Buri-Thabet, quos bello vicerunt: qui sunt pagani. Qui consuetudinem mirabilem imo potius miserabilem habent: quia cum alicujus pater humanae naturae debitum solvit, omnem congregant parentelam ut comedant eum, sicut nobis dicebatur pro certo."—Joan. de Plano Carpini, in Rec. de Voyages, iv. 658.
1253.—"Post istos sunt Tebet, homines solentes comedere parentes suos defunctos, ut causa pietatis non facerent aliud sepulchrum eis nisi viscera sua."—Rubruq. in Recueil de Voyages, &c. iv. 289.
1298.—"Tebet est une grandisime provence qve lengajes ont por elles, et sunt ydres.... Il sunt maint grant laironz ... il sunt mau custumés; il ont grandismes chenz mastin qe sunt grant come asnes et sunt mout buen a prendre bestes sauvajes."—Marco Polo, Geog. Text. ch. cxvi.
1330.—"Passando questa provincia grande perveni a un altro gran regno che si chiama Tibet, ch'ene ne confini d'India ed e tutta al gran Cane ... la gente di questa contrada dimora in tende che sono fatte di feltri neri. La principale cittade è fatta tutta di pietre bianche e nere, e tutte le vie lastricate. In questa cittade dimora il Atassi (Abassi?) che viene a dire in nostro modo il Papa."—Fr. Odorico, Palatine MS., in Cathay, &c. App. p. lxi.
c. 1340.—"The said mountain (Karāchīl, the Himālaya) extends in length a space of {918b}3 months' journey, and at the base is the country of Thabbat, which has the antelopes which give musk."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 438-439.
TICAL, s. This (tikāl) is a word which has long been in use by foreign traders to Burma, for the quasi-standard weight of (uncoined) current silver, and is still in general use in B. Burma as applied to that value. This weight is by the Burmese themselves called kyat, and is the hundredth part of the viss (q.v.), being thus equivalent to about 1¼ rupee in value. The origin of the word tikāl is doubtful. Sir A. Phayre suggests that possibly it is a corruption of the Burmese words ta-kyat, "one kyat." On the other hand perhaps it is more probable that the word may have represented the Indian ṭakā (see TUCKA). The word is also used by traders to Siam. But there likewise it is a foreign term; the Siamese word being bat. In Siam the tikal is according to Crawfurd a silver coin, as well as a weight equivalent to 225½ grs. English. In former days it was a short cylinder of silver bent double, and bearing two stamps, thus half-way between the Burmese bullion and proper coin.[268]
[1554.—"Ticals." See MACAO b. Also see VISS.]
1585.—"Auuertendosi che vna bize di peso è per 40 once Venetiane, e ogni bize è teccali cento, e vn gito val teccali 25, e vn abocco val teccali 12½."—G. Balbi (in Pegu), f. 108.
[1615.—"Cloth to the value of six cattes (Catty) less three tiggalls."—Foster, Letters, iv. 107.
[1639.—"Four Ticals make a Tayl (Tael)."—Mandelslo, E.T. ii. 130.]
1688.—"The proportion of their (Siamese) Money to ours is, that their Tical, which weighs no more than half a Crown, is yet worth three shillings and three half-pence."—La Loubère, E.T. p. 72.
1727.—"Pegu Weight.
| 1 | Viece is | 39 ou. Troy, | |
| or 1 | Viece | 100 Teculs. | |
| 140 | Viece | a Bahaar | (see BAHAR). |
The Bahaar is 3 Pecul China."—A. Hamilton, ii. 317; [ed. 1744].
c. 1759.—"... a dozen or 20 fowls may be bought for a Tical (little more than ½ a Crown)."—In Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 121.
1775.—Stevens, New and Complete Guide to E.I. Trade, gives
"Pegu weight:
100 moo = 1 Tual (read Tical).
100 tual (Tical) = 1 vis (see VISS) = 3 lb. 5 oz. 5 dr. avr.
150 vis = 1 candy."
And under Siam:
"80 Tuals (Ticals) = 1 Catty.
50 Catties = 1 Pecul."
1783.—"The merchandize is sold for teecalls, a round piece of silver, stamped and weighing about one rupee and a quarter."—Forrest, V. to Mergui, p. vii.
TICCA, and vulg. TICKER, adj. This is applied to any person or thing engaged by the job, or on contract. Thus a ticca garry is a hired carriage, a ticca doctor is a surgeon not in the regular service but temporarily engaged by Government. From Hind. ṭhīka, ṭhīkah, 'hire, fare, fixed price.'
[1813.—"Teecka, hire, fare, contract, job."—Gloss. to Fifth Report, s.v.]
1827.—"A Rule, Ordinance and Regulation for the good Order and Civil Government of the Settlement of Fort William in Bengal, and for regulating the number and fare of Teeka Palankeens, and Teeka Bearers in the Town of Calcutta ... registered in the Supreme Court of Judicature, on the 27th June, 1827."—Bengal Regulations of 1827.
1878.—"Leaving our servants to jabber over our heavier baggage, we got into a 'ticca gharry,' 'hired trap,' a bit of civilization I had hardly expected to find so far in the Mofussil."—Life in the Mofussil, ii. 94.
[TICKA, s. Hind. ṭīkā, Skt. tilaka, a mark on the forehead made with coloured earth or unguents, as an ornament, to mark sectarial distinction, accession to the throne, at betrothal, &c.; also a sort of spangle worn on the forehead by women. The word has now been given the additional meaning of the mark made in vaccination, and the ṭīkāwālā Ṣāḥib is the vaccination officer.
[c. 1796.—"... another was sent to Kutch to bring thence the tika...."—Mir Hussein Ali, Life of Tipu, 251.
[1832.—"In the centre of their foreheads is a teeka (or spot) of lamp-black."—Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, 2nd ed. 139.
[c. 1878.—"When a sudden stampede of the children, accompanied by violent yells and sudden falls, has taken place as I entered a village, I have been informed, by way of apology, that it was not I whom the children feared, but that they supposed that I was the Tikawala Sahib."—Panjab Gazetteer, Rohtak, p. 9.]
TICKY-TOCK. This is an unmeaning refrain used in some French songs, and by foreign singing masters in their scales. It would appear from the following quotations to be of Indian origin.
c. 1755.—"These gentry (the band with nautch-girls) are called Tickytaw boys, from the two words Ticky and Taw, which they continually repeat, and which they chaunt with great vehemence."—Ives, 75.
[c. 1883.—"Each pair of boys then, having privately arranged to represent two separate articles ... comes up to the captains, and one of the pair says dik dik, daun daun, which apparently has about as much meaning as the analogous English nursery saying, 'Dickory, dickory dock.'"—Panjab Gazetteer, Hoshiārpur, p. 35.]
[TIER-CUTTY, s. This is Malayāl. tiyar-katti, the knife used by a Tiyan or toddy-drawer for scarifying the palm-trees. The Tiyan caste take their title from Malayal. tíyyan, which again comes from Malayal. tívu, Skt. dvīpa, 'an island,' and derive their name from their supposed origin in Ceylon.
[1792.—"12 Tier Cutties."—Account, in Logan, Malabar, iii. 169.
[1799.—"The negadee (naqdī, 'cash-payment') on houses, banksauls (see BANKSHALL), Tiers' knives."—Ibid. iii. 324.]
TIFFIN, s. Luncheon, Anglo-Indian and Hindustani, at least in English households. Also to Tiff, v. to take luncheon. Some have derived this word from Ar. tafannun, 'diversion, amusement,' but without history, or evidence of such an application of the Arabic word. Others have derived it from Chinese ch'ih-fan, 'eat-rice,' which is only an additional example that anything whatever may be plausibly resolved into Chinese monosyllables. We believe the word to be a local survival of an English colloquial or slang term. Thus we find in the Lexicon Balatronicum, compiled originally by Capt. Grose (1785): "Tiffing, eating or drinking out of meal-times," besides other meanings. Wright (Dict. of Obsolete and Provincial English) has: "Tiff, s. (1) a draught of liquor, (2) small beer;" and Mr. Davies (Supplemental English Glossary) gives some good quotations both of this substantive and of a verb "to tiff," in the sense of 'take off a draught.' We should conjecture that Grose's {920a}sense was a modification of this one, that his "tiffing" was a participial noun from the verb to tiff, and that the Indian tiffin is identical with the participial noun. This has perhaps some corroboration both from the form "tiffing" used in some earlier Indian examples, and from the Indian use of the verb "to Tiff." [This view is accepted by Prof. Skeat, who derives tiff from Norweg. tev, 'a drawing in of the breath, sniff,' teva, 'to sniff' (Concise Dict. s.v.; and see 9 ser. N. & Q. iv. 425, 460, 506; v. 13).] Rumphius has a curious passage which we have tried in vain to connect with the present word; nor can we find the words he mentions in either Portuguese or Dutch Dictionaries. Speaking of Toddy and the like he says:
"Homines autem qui eas (potiones) colligunt ac praeparant, dicuntur Portugallico nomine Tiffadores, atque opus ipsum Tiffar; nostratibus Belgis tyfferen" (Herb. Amboinense, i. 5).
We may observe that the comparatively late appearance of the word tiffin in our documents is perhaps due to the fact that when dinner was early no lunch was customary. But the word, to have been used by an English novelist in 1811, could not then have been new in India.
We now give examples of the various uses:
TIFF, s. In the old English senses (in which it occurs also in the form tip, and is probably allied to tipple and tipsy); [see Prof. Skeat, quoted above].
(1) For a draught:
1758.—"Monday ... Seven. Returned to my room. Made a tiff of warm punch, and to bed before nine."—Journal of a Senior Fellow, in the Idler, No. 33.
(2) For small beer:
1604.—
"... make waste more prodigal
Than when our beer was good, that John may float
To Styx in beer, and lift up Charon's boat
With wholsome waves: and as the conduits ran
With claret at the Coronation,
So let your channels flow with single tiff,
For John I hope is crown'd...."
On John Dawson, Butler of Christ Church,
in Bishop Corbet's Poems, ed. 1807, pp. 207-8.
TO TIFF, v. in the sense of taking off a draught.
1812.—
"He tiff'd his punch and went to rest."
Combe, Dr. Syntax, I. Canto v.
(This is quoted by Mr. Davies.)
TIFFIN (the Indian substantive).