Chapter ALLYGOLE to ALOO BOKHARA of A by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ALLYGOLE to ALOO BOKHARA

[ALLYGOLE, ALIGHOL, ALLYGOOL, ALLEEGOLE, s. H.—P. ‘aligol, from ’ali ‘lofty, excellent,’ Skt. gola, a troop; a nondescript word used for “irregular foot in the Maratha service, without discipline or regular arms. According to some they are so named from charging in a dense mass and invoking ’Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, being chiefly Mohammedans.”—(Wilson.)

1796.—“The Nezibs (Nujeeb) are matchlockmen, and according to their different casts are called Allegoles or Rohillas; they are indifferently formed of high-cast Hindoos and Musselmans, armed with the country Bandook (bundook), to which the ingenuity of De Boigne had added a Bayonet.”— W. H. Tone, A Letter on the Maratta People, p. 50.

1804.—“Alleegole, A sort of chosen light infantry of the Rohilla Patans: sometimes the term appears to be applied to troops supposed to be used generally for desperate service.”—Fraser, Military Memoirs of Skinner, ii. 71 note, 75, 76.

1817.—“The Allygools answer nearly the same description.”—Blacker, Mem. of Operations in India, p. 22.

ALMADIA, s. This is a word introduced into Portuguese from Moorish Ar. al-ma’diya. Properly it means ‘a raft’ (see Dozy, s.v.). But it is generally used by the writers on India for a canoe, or the like small native boat.

1514.—“E visto che non veniva nessuno ambasciata, solo venia molte abadie, cioè barche, a venderci galline.…”—Giov. da Empoli, in Archiv. Stor. Ital., p. 59.

[1539.—See quotation from Pinto under ALLIGATOR.

c. 1610.—“Light vessels which they call almadia.”—Pyrard della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 122; and also see under DONEY.]

1644.—“Huma Almadia pera serviço do dito Baluarte, com seis marinheiros que cada hum ven-se hum x(erafi)^m por mes .… x^s 72.”—Expenses of Diu, in Bocarro (Sloane MSS. 197, fol. 175).

ALMANACK, s. On this difficult word see Dozy’s Oosterlingen and N.E.D. In a passage quoted by Eusebius from Porphyry (Praep. Evangel. t. iii. ed. Gaisford) there is mention of Egyptian calendars called almÎniciana Also in the Vocabular Arauigo of Pedro de Alcala (1505) the Ar. Manak is given as the equivalent of the Span. almanaque, which seems to show that the Sp. Arabs did use manakh in the sense required, probably having adopted it from the Egyptian, and having assumed the initial al to be their own article.

ALMYRA, s. H. almari. A wardrobe, chest of drawers, or like piece of (closed) furniture. The word is in general use, by masters and servants in Anglo-Indian households, in both N. and S. India. It has come to us from the Port. almario, but it is the same word as Fr. armoire, Old E. ambry [for which see N.E.D.] &c., and Sc. awmry, orginating in the Lat. armarium, or -ria, which occurs also in L. Gr. as armarh, armarion.

c. B.C. 200.—“Hoc est quod olim clanculum ex armario te surripuisse aiebas uxori tuae.…”—Plautus, Men. iii. 3.

A.D. 1450.—“Item, I will my chambre prestes haue .… the thone of thame the to almer, & the tothir of yame the tother almar whilk I ordnyd for kepyng of vestmentes.”—Will of Sir T. Cumberlege, in Academy, Sept. 27, 1879, p. 231.

1589.—“—item ane langsettle, item ane almarie, ane Kist, ane sait burde .…”— Ext. Records Burgh of Glasgow, 1876, 130.

1878.—“Sahib, have you looked in Mr Morrison’s almirah?”—Life in Mofussil, i. 34.

ALOES, s. The name of aloes is applied to two entirely different substances: a. the drug prepared from the inspissated bitter juice of the Aloë Socotrina, Lam. In this meaning (a) the name is considered (Hanbury and Flückiger, Pharmacographia, 616) to be derived from the Syriac ’elwai (in P. alwa). b. Aloes-wood, the same as Eagle-wood. This is perhaps from one of the Indian forms, through the Hebrew (pl. forms) ahalim, akhalim and ahaloth, akhaloth. Neither Hippocrates nor Theophrastus mentions aloes, but Dioscorides describes two kinds of it (Mat. Med. iii. 3). “It was probably the Socotrine aloes with which the ancients were most familiar. Eustathius says the aloe was called iÎra, from its excellence in preserving life (ad. Il. 630). This accounts for the powder of aloes being called Hiera picra in the