Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·South Asia ·1810s
Dinghy
from ḍiṅgī
- Meaning
- A small boat, usually tendered to a larger one.
- Source word
- ḍiṅgī
- Route into English
- Bengali/Hindi *ḍiṅgī* (small boat on the Ganges) → Anglo-Indian → English naval. The *h* was added in English to preserve the hard *g*; originally the word referred to a specific river craft.
- Arrived
- 1810s
From South Asia
Three centuries of British colonial contact — East India Company, Raj, military, domestic life — deposited a distinct Hindi/Urdu/Bengali/Sanskrit layer in everyday English.
English borrows.
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