Chapter ACHÁR toADAWLUT of A by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ACHÁR toADAWLUT

ACHÁR, s. P. achar, Malay achar, adopted in nearly all the vernaculars of India for acid and salt relishes. By Europeans it is used as the equivalent of ‘pickles,’ and is applied to all the stores of Crosse and Blackwell in that kind. We have adopted the word through the Portuguese; but it is not impossible that Western Asiatics got it originally from the Latin acetaria.— (See Plin. Hist. Nat. xix. 19).

1563.—“And they prepare a conserve of it (Anacardium) with salt, and when it is green (and this they call Achar), and this is sold in the market just as olives are with us.”—Garcia, f. 17.

1596.—Linschoten in the Dutch gives the word correctly, but in the English version (Hak. Soc. ii. 26) it is printed Machar.

[1612.—“Achar none to be had except one jar.”—Danvers, Letters, i. 230.]

1616.—“Our jurebasso’s (Juribasso) wife came and brought me a small jarr of Achar for a present, desyring me to exskews her husband in that he abcented hymselfe to take phisik.”—Cocks, i. 135.

1623.—“And all these preserved in a way that is really very good, which they call acciao.”—P. della Valle, ii. 708. [Hak. Soc. ii. 327.]

1653.—“Achar est vn nom Indistanni, ou Indien, que signifie des mangues, ou autres fruits confis avec de la moutarde, de l’ail, du sel, et du vinaigre à l’Indienne.”— De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, 531.

1687.—“Achar I presume signifies sauce. They make in the East Indies, especially at Siam and Pegu, several sorts of Achar, as of the young tops of Bamboes, &c. Bambo-Achar and Mango-Achar are most used.”— Dampier, i. 391.

1727.—“And the Soldiery, Fishers, Peasants, and Handicrafts (of Goa) feed on a little Rice boiled in Water, with a little bit of Salt Fish, or Atchaar, which is pickled Fruits or Roots.”—A. Hamilton, i. 252. [And see under KEDGEREE.]

1783.—We learn from Forrest that limes, salted for sea-use against scurvy, were used by the Chulias (Choolia), and were called atchar (Voyage to Mergui, 40). Thus the word passed to Java, as in next quotation:

1768-71.—“When green it (the mango) is made into attjar; for this the kernel is taken out, and the space filled in with ginger, pimento, and other spicy ingredients, after which it is pickled in vinegar.” —Stavorinus, i. 237.

ACHEEN, n.p. (P. Achin [Tam. Attai, Malay Acheh, Achih] ‘a wood-leech’). The name applied by us to the State and town at the N.W. angle of Sumatra, which was long, and especially during the 16th and 17th centuries, the greatest native power on that Island. The proper Malay name of the place is Acheh. The Portuguese generally called it Achem (or frequently by the adhesion of the genitive preposition, Dachem, so that Sir F. Greville below makes two kingdoms), but our Acheen seems to have been derived from mariners of the P. Gulf or W. India, for we find the name so given (Achin) in the Ain-i-Akbari, and in the Geog. Tables of Sadik Isfahani. This form may have been suggested by a jingling analogy, such as Orientals love, with Machin (Macheen). See also under LOOTY.

1549.—“Piratarum Acenorum nec periculum nec suspicio fuit.”—S. Fr. Xav. Epistt. 337.

1552.—“But after Malacca was founded, and especially at the time of our entry into India, the Kingdom of Pacem began to increase in power, and that of Pedir to diminish. And that neighbouring one of Achem, which was then insignificant, is now the greatest of all.”—Barros, III. v. 8.

1563.—

“Occupado tenhais na guerra infesta
Ou do sanguinolento,
Taprobanico¹ Achem, que ho mar
molesta
Ou do Cambaico occulto imiguo nosso.”

Camões, Ode prefixed to Garcia de Orta.

c. 1569.—“Upon the headland towards the West is the Kingdom of Assi, governed by a Moore King.”—Cœsar Frederike, tr. in Hakluyt, ii. 355.

c. 1590.—“The zabád (civet), which is brought from the harbour- town of Sumatra, from the territory of Achín, goes by the name of Sumatra-zabád, and is by far the best.”—Ain, i. 79.

1597.—“..... do Pegu como do Dachem.”—King’s Letter, in Arch. Port. Or. fasc. 3, 669.

1599.—“The iland of Sumatra, or Taprobuna, is possessed by many Kynges, enemies to the Portugals; the cheif is the Kinge of Dachem, who besieged them in Malacca… The Kinges of Acheyn and Tor (read Jor for Johore) are in lyke sort enemies to the Portugals.”—Sir Fulke Greville to Sir F. Walsingham (in Bruce, i. 125).

[1615.—“It so proved that both Ponleema and Governor of Tecoo was come hither for Achein.”—Foster, Letters, iv. 3.

1623.—“Acem which is Sumatra.”—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 287.]

c. 1635.—“Achín (a name equivalent in rhyme and metre to ‘Máchín’) is a well-known island in the Chinese Sea, near to the equinoctial line.”—Sadik Isfahani (Or. Tr. F.), p. 2.

1780.—“Archin.”