coolie
/ˈkuːli/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.36 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "One day when the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid had just arrived in the Cemetery, they saw some coolies breaking ground."
- "From Hui-li-chou northwards I was escorted by real soldiers, quite of the new service. They looked rather shipshape in khaki suits and puttees, and their guns were of a good model, but they handled them in careless fashion at first, belabouring laden ponies and even coolies who were slow in getting out of the way of my chair."
- "Outside, beyond the sun-baked station yard, a rice mill chugged away in the distance, and sweating coolies unloaded bags of rice from creaking bullock carts."
- "Coolie-identity is as much the product of self-perception as it is the construction of a category by those who did not belong to it. It is these constructions that historically constituted a coolie in the matrix of power relations which this essay seeks to partially comprehend."
- "Community histories did not necessarily feature the coolie, partly due to the fact that “coolie” is a classed term. Asian coolies were regarded as lowly laborers."
- "Well, he and his troops had shown the koefietjies-the little coolies-how quickly and how easily Afrikaner explosive shells could knock it down."
Etymology
Borrowed from Hindustani (Hindi क़ुली (qulī) / Urdu قلی (qulī, “hired laborer”)), from Chagatai قلی (quli, “servant, slave”), ultimately from Proto-Turkic *kul. Another theory says that it is named after Gujarati કોળી (koḷī), a Gujarati tribe or caste. Other forms occur in Bengali কুলি (kuli) and Tamil கூலி (kūli, “daily hire”). Possibly also influenced by Hindustani (कोली (kolī) / کولی (kolī, “weaver; low-class”)), or Persian کول (kūl, “shoulder [upon which goods are hauled]”). In Kurdish Koile (کۆیلە) and Quli (قولى): Slave, Servant. Kawli (Keweli): Low-Class, Gypsy. Mandarin 苦力 (kǔlì, “hard labor”) may also have been influenced by cognates of the above Hindi word in other languages and may have further influenced English.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: क़ुली, قلی, قل, *kul, કોળી, কুলি