Chapter ALPEEN to A MUCK of A by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ALPEEN to A MUCK

ALPEEN, s. H. alpin, used in Bombay. A common pin, from Port. alfinete (Panjab N. & Q., ii. 117).

AMAH, s. A wet nurse; used in Madras, Bombay, China and Japan. It is Port. ama (comp. German and Swedish amme).

1839.—“.… A sort of good-natured housekeeper-like bodies, who talk only of ayahs and amahs, and bad nights, and babies, and the advantages of Hodgson’s ale while they are nursing: seeming in short devoted to ‘suckling fools and chronicling small beer.’ ”—Letters from Madras, 294. See also p. 106.

AMBAREE, s. This is a P. word (’amari) for a Howdah, and the word occurs in Colebrooke’s letters, but is quite unusual now. Gladwin defines Amaree as “an umbrella over the Howdeh” (Index to Ayeen, i.). The proper application is to a canopied howdah, such as is still used by native princes.

[c. 1661.—“Aurengzebe felt that he might venture to shut his brother up in a covered embary, a kind of closed litter in which women are carried on elephants.”—Bernier (ed. Constable), 69.]

c. 1665.—“On the day that the King went up the Mountain of Pire-ponjale … being followed by a long row of elephants, upon which sat the Women in Mikdembers and Embarys.…”—Bernier, E.T. 130 [ed. Constable, 407].

1798.—“The Rajah’s Sowarree was very grand and superb. He had twenty elephants, with richly embroidered ambarrehs, the whole of them mounted by his sirdars, —he himself riding upon the largest, put in the centre.”—Skinner, Mem. i. 157.

1799.—“Many of the largest Ceylon and other Deccany Elephants bore ambáris on which all the chiefs and nobles rode, dressed with magnificence, and adorned with the richest jewels.”—Life of Colebrooke, p. 164.

1805.—“Amaury, a canopied seat for an elephant. An open one is called Houza or Howda.”—Dict. of Words used in E. Indies, 2nd ed. 21.

1807.—“A royal tiger which was started in beating a large cover for game, sprang up so far into the umbarry or state howdah, in which Sujah Dowlah was seated, as to leave little doubt of a fatal issue.”— Williamson, Orient. Field Sports, 15.

AMBARREH, s. Dekh. Hind. and Mahr. ambara, ambari [Skt. amla-vatika], the plant Hibiscus cannabinus, affording a useful fibre.

AMBOYNA, n.p. A famous island in the Molucca Sea, belonging to the Dutch. The native form of the name is Ambun [which according to Marsden means ‘dew’].

[1605.—“He hath sent hither his forces which hath expelled all the Portingalls out of the fforts they here hould att Ambweno and Tydore.”—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 68.]

AMEEN, s. The word is Ar. amin, meaning ‘a trustworthy person,’ and then an inspector, intendant, &c. In India it has several uses as applied to native officials employed under the Civil Courts, but nearly all reducible to the definition of fide-commissarius. Thus an ameen may be employed by a Court to investigate accounts connected with a suit, to prosecute local enquiries of any kind bearing on a suit, to sell or to deliver over possession of immovable property, to carry out legal process as a bailiff, &c. The name is also applied to native assistants in the duties of land-survey. But see Sudder Ameen (SUDDER).

[1616.—“He declared his office of Amin required him to hear and determine differences.”—Foster, Letters, iv. 351.]

1817.—“Native officers called aumeens were sent to collect accounts, and to obtain information in the districts. The first incidents that occurred were complaints against these aumeens for injurious treatment of the inhabitants.…”—Mill. Hist., ed. 1840, iv. 12.

1861.—“Bengallee dewans, once pure, are converted into demons; Ameens, once harmless, become tigers; magistrates, supposed to be just, are converted into oppressors.”—Peterson, Speech for Prosecution in Nil Durpan case.

1878.—“The Ameen employed in making the partition of an estate.”—Life in the Mofussil, i. 206.

1882.—“A missionary.… might, on the other hand, be brought to a standstill when asked to explain all the terms used by an amin or valuator who had been sent to fix the judicial rents.”—Saty. Rev., Dec. 30, p. 866.