Chapter CHERRY FOUJ to CHICANE of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

to Islam.” (Col. Temple, in Ind. Ant., July, 1896, pp. 200 seqq.). In Anglo-Indian usage it came to mean a special battalion made up of prisoners and converts.

[c. 1596.—“The Chelahs or Slaves. His Majesty from religious motives dislikes the name bandah or slave.…He therefore calls this class of men Chelahs, which Hindi term signifies a faithful disciple.”—Ain, Blochmann, i. 253 seqq.

[1791.—“(The Europeans) all were bound on the parade and rings (boly) the badge of slavery were put into their ears. They were then incorporated into a battalion of Cheylas.”—In Seton-Karr, ii. 311.

[1795.—“…a Havildar…compelled to serve in one of his Chela Corps.”—Ibid. ii. 407.]

CHIAMAY, n.p. The name of an imaginary lake, which in the maps of the 16th century, followed by most of those of the 17th, is made the source of most of the great rivers of Further India, including the Brahmaputra, the Irawadi, the Salwen, and the Menam. Lake Chiamay was the counterpart of the African lake of the same period which is made the source of all the great rivers of Africa, but it is less easy to suggest what gave rise to this idea of it. The actual name seems taken from the State of Zimmé (see JANGOMAY) or Chiang-mai.

c. 1544.—“So proceeding onward, he arrived at the Lake of Singipamor, which ordinarily is called Chiammay.…”—F. M. Pinto, Cogan’s tr., page 271.

1552.—“The Lake of Chiamai, which stands to the northward, 200 leagues in the interior, and from which issue six notable streams, three of which combining with others form the great river which passes through the midst of Siam, whilst the other three discharge into the Gulf of Bengala.”— Barros, I. ix. 1.

1572.—

“Olha o rio Menão, que se derrama
Do grande lago, que Chiamai se chama.”

Camões, x. 125.

1652.—“The Countrey of these Brames …extendeth Northwards from the neerest Peguan Kingdomes…watered with many great and remarkable Rivers, issuing from the Lake Chiamay, which though 600 miles from the Sea, and emptying itself continually into so many Channels, contains 400 miles in compass, and is nevertheless full of waters for the one or the other.”— P. Heylin’s Cosmographie, ii. 238.

CHICANE, CHICANERY, ss. These English words, signifying pettifogging, captious contention, taking every possible advantage in a contest, have been referred to Spanish chico, ‘little,’ and to Fr. chic, chicquet, ‘a little bit,’ as by Mr. Wedgwood in his Dict. of Eng. Etymology. See also quotation from Saturday Review below. But there can be little doubt that the words are really traceable to the game of chaugan, or horse-golf. This game is now well known in England under the name of Polo (q.v.). But the recent introduction under that name is its second importation into Western Europe. For in the Middle Ages it came from Persia to Byzantium, where it was popular under a modification of its Persian name (verb [Greek Text] tzukanizein, playing ground [Greek Text] tzukanisthrion), and from Byzantium it passed, as a pedestrian game, to Languedoc, where it was called, by a further modification, chicane (see Ducange, Dissertations sur l’Histoire de St. Louis, viii., and his Glossarium Graecitatis, s.v. [Greek Text] tzukanizein; also Ouseley’s Travels, i. 345). The analogy of certain periods of the game of golf suggests how the figurative meaning of chicaner might arise in taking advantage of the petty accidents of the surface. And this is the strict meaning of chicaner, as used by military writers.

Ducange’s idea was that the Greeks had borrowed both the game and the name from France, but this is evidently erroneous. He was not aware of the Persian chaugan. But he explains well how the tactics of the game would have led to the application of its name to “those tortuous proceedings of pleaders which we old practitioners call barres.” The indication of the Persian origin of both the Greek and French words is due to W. Ouseley and to Quatremère. The latter has an interesting note, full of his usual wealth of Oriental reading, in his translation of Makrizi’s Mameluke Sultans, tom. i. pt. i. pp. 121 seqq.

The preceding etymology was put forward again in Notes upon Mr. Wedgwood’s Dictionary published by one of the present writers in Ocean Highways, Sept. 1872, page 186. The same etymology has since been given by Littré (s.v.), who says: “Dès lors, la série des sens est: jeu de mail, puis action de disputer la partie, et enfin manœuvres processives”; [and is accepted by the N.E.D. with the reservation that “evidence actually connecting the French with the Greek word appears not to be known”].

The P. forms of the name are chaugan and