Chapter CHINSURA to CHIPE of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

CHINSURA to CHIPE

CHINSURA, n.p. A town on the Hoogly River, 26 miles above Calcutta, on the west bank, which was the seat of a Dutch settlement and factory down to 1824, when it was ceded to us by the Treaty of London, under which the Dutch gave up Malacca and their settlements in continental India, whilst we withdrew from Sumatra. [The place gave its name to a kind of cloth, Chinechuras (see PIECE-GOODS).]

1684.—“This day between 3 and 6 o’clock in the Afternoon, Capt. Richardson and his Sergeant, came to my house in ye Chinchera, and brought me this following message from ye President.…”—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 166.

1705.—“La Loge appellée Chamdernagor est une très-belle Maison située sur le bord d’un des bras du fleuve de Gange.…À une lieue de la Loge il y a une grande Ville appellée Chinchurat.…”—Luillier, 64–65.

1726.—“The place where our Lodge (or Factory) is is properly called Sinternu [i.e. Chinsura] and not Hoogli (which is the name of the village).”—Valentijn, v. 162.

1727.—“Chinchura, where the Dutch Emporium stands…the Factors have a great many good Houses standing pleasantly on the River- Side; and all of them have pretty Gardens.”—A. Hamilton, ii. 20; ed. 1744, ii. 18.

[1753.—“Shinshura.” See quotation under CALCUTTA.]

CHINTS, CHINCH, s. A bug. This word is now quite obsolete both in India and in England. It is a corruption of the Portuguese chinche, which again is from cimex. Mrs. Trollope, in her once famous book on the Domestic Manners of the Americans, made much of a supposed instance of affected squeamishness in American ladies, who used the word chintses instead of bugs. But she was ignorant of the fact that chints was an old and proper name for the objectionable exotic insect, ‘bug’ being originally but a figurative (and perhaps a polite) term, ‘an object of disgust and horror’ (Wedgwood). Thus the case was exactly the opposite of what she chose to imagine; chints was the real name, bug the more or less affected euphonism.

1616.—“In the night we were likewise very much disquieted with another sort, called Musqueetoes, like our Gnats, but some-what less; and in that season we were very much troubled with Chinches, another sort of little troublesome and offensive creatures, like little Tikes: and these annoyed us two wayes; as first by their biting and stinging, and then by their stink.”—Terry, ed. 1665, p. 372; [ed. 1777, p. 117].

1645.—“…for the most part the bedsteads in Italy are of forged iron gilded, since it is impossible to keepe the wooden ones from the chimices.”—Evelyn’s Diary, Sept. 29.

1673.—“…Our Bodies broke out into small fiery Pimples…augmented by Muskeetoe - Bites, and Chinces raising Blisters on us.”—Fryer, 35.

„ “Chints are venomous, and if squeezed leave a most Poysonous Stench.”—Ibid. 189.

CHINTZ, s. A printed or spotted cotton cloth; Port. chita; Mahr. chit, and H. chint. The word in this last form occurs (c. 1590) in the Ain-i-Akbari (i. 95). It comes apparently from the Skt. chitra, ‘variegated, speckled.’ The best chintzes were bought on the Madras coast, at Masulipatam and Sadras. The French form of the word is chite, which has suggested the possibility of our sheet being of the same origin. But chite is apparently of Indian origin, through the Portuguese, whilst sheet is much older than the Portuguese communication with India. Thus (1450) in Sir T. Cumberworth’s will he directs his “wreched body to be beryd in a chitte with owte any kyste” (Academy, Sept. 27, 1879, p. 230). The resemblance to the Indian forms in this is very curious.

1614.—“…chintz and chadors.…”—Peyton, in Purchas, i. 530.

[1616.—“3 per Chint bramport.”—Cocks’s Diary, i. 171.

[1623.—“Linnen stamp’d with works of sundry colours (which they call · cit).”—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 45.]

1653.—“Chites en Indou signifie des toilles imprimeés.”—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1647, p. 536.

c. 1666.—“Le principal trafic des Hollandois à Amedabad, est de chites, qui sont de toiles peintes.”—Thevenot, v. 35. In the English version (1687) this is written schites (iv. ch. v.).

1676.—“Chites or Painted Calicuts, which they call Calmendar, that is done with a pencil, are made in the Kingdom of Golconda, and particularly about Masulipatam.”—Tavernier, E.T., p. 126; [ed. Ball, ii. 4].

1725.—“The returns that are injurious to our manufactures, or growth of our own country, are printed calicoes, chintz, wrought silks, stuffs, of herba, and barks.”—Defoe, New Voyage round the World. Works, Oxford, 1840, p. 161.

1726.—“The Warehouse Keeper reported to the Board, that the chintzes, being brought