Chapter CANDAREEN to CANGUE of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

CANDAREEN to CANGUE

CANDAREEN. s. In Malay, to which language the word apparently belongs, kanduri. A term formerly applied to the hundredth of the Chinese ounce or weight, commonly called by the Malay name tahil (see TAEL). Fryer (1673) gives the Chinese weights thus:— 1 Cattee is nearest 16 Taies 1 Teen (Taie ?) is 10 Mass 1 Mass in Silver is 10 Quandreens 1 Quandreen is 10 Cash 733 Cash make 1 Royal 1 grain English weight is 2 cash.

1554.—“In Malacca the weight used for gold, musk, &c., the cate, contains 20 taels, each tael 16 mazes, each maz 20 cumduryns; also 1 paual 4 mazes, each maz 4 cupongs; each cupong 5 cumduryns.”— A. Nunes, 39.

1615.—“We bought 5 greate square postes of the Kinges master carpenter; cost 2 mas 6 condrins per peece.”—Cocks, i. 1.

(1)

CANDY, n.p.A town in the hill country of Ceylon, which became the deposit of the sacred tooth of Buddha at the beginning of the 14th century, and was adopted as the native capital about 1592. Chitty says the name is unknown to the natives, who call the place Maha nuvera, ‘great city.’ The name seems to have arisen out of some misapprehension by the Portuguese, which may be illustrated by the quotation from Valentijn.

c. 1530.—“And passing into the heart of the Island, there came to the Kingdom of Candia, a certain Friar Pascoal with two companions, who were well received by the King of the country Javira Bandar…in so much that he gave them a great piece of ground, and everything needful to build a church, and houses for them to dwell in.”— Couto, Dec. VI. liv. iv. cap. 7.

1552.—“…and at three or four places, like the passes of the Alps of Italy, one finds entrance within this circuit (of mountains) which forms a Kingdom called Cande.” —Barros, Dec. III. Liv. ii. cap. 1.

1645.—“Now then as soon as the Emperor was come to his Castle in Candi he gave order that the 600 captive Hollanders should be distributed throughout his country among the peasants, and in the City.” —J. J. Saar’s 15-Jahrige Kriegs-Dienst, 97.

1681.—“The First is the City of Candy, so generally called by the Christians, probably from Conde, which in the Chingulays Language signifies Hills, for among them it is situated, but by the Inhabitants called Hingodagul-neure, as much as to say ‘The City of the Chingulay people,’ and Mauneur, signifying the ‘Chief or Royal City.’ ”—R. Knox, p. 5.

1726.—“Candi, otherwise Candia, or named in Cingalees Conde Ouda, i.e. the high mountain country.”—Valentijn (Ceylon), 19.

(2)

CANDY, s. A weight used in S. India, which may be stated roughly at about 500 lbs., but varying much in different parts. It corresponds broadly with the Arabian Bahar (q.v.), and was generally equivalent to 20 Maunds, varying therefore with the maund. The word is Mahr. and Tel. khandi, written in Tam. and Mal. kandi, or Mal. kanti, [and comes from the Skt. khand, ‘to divide.’ A Candy of land is supposed to be as much as will produce a candy of grain, approximately 75 acres]. The Portuguese write the word candil.

1563.—“A candil which amounts to 522 pounds” (arrateis).—Garcia, f. 55.

1598.—“One candiel (v.l. candiil) is little more or less than 14 bushels, wherewith they measure Rice, Corne, and all graine.”—Linschoten, 69; [Hak. Soc. i. 245].

1618.—“The Candee at this place (Batecala) containeth neere 500 pounds.”—W. Hore, in Purchas, i. 657.

1710.—“They advised that they have supplied Habib Khan with ten candy of country gunpowder.”—In Wheeler, ii. 136.

c. 1760.—Grose gives the Bombay candy as 20 maunds of 28 lbs. each=560 lbs.; the Surat ditto as 20 maunds of 37 1/3 lbs.=746 2/3 lbs.; the Anjengo ditto 560 lbs.; the Carwar ditto 575 lbs.; the Coromandel ditto at 500 lbs. &c.

(3) CANDY (SUGAR-). This name of crystallized sugar, though it came no doubt to Europe from the P.- Ar. kand (P. also shakar kand; Sp. azucar cande; It. candi and zucchero candito; Fr. sucre candi) is of Indian origin. There is a Skt. root khand, ‘to break,’ whence khanda, ‘broken,’ also applied in various compounds to granulated and candied sugar. But there is also Tam. kar-kanda, kala-kanda, Mal. kandi, kal-kandi, and kalkantu, which may have been the direct source of the P. and Ar. adoption of the word, and perhaps its original, from a Dravidian word= ‘lump.’ [The Dravidian terms mean ‘stone- piece.’]

A German writer, long within last century (as we learn from Mahn, quoted in Diez’s Lexicon), appears to derive candy from Candia, “because most of the sugar which the Venetians imported was