Chapter CHUNÁM to CHURRUCK of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

CHUNÁM to CHURRUCK

CHUNÁM, TO, v. To set in mortar; or, more frequently, to plaster over with chunam.

1687.—“…to get what great jars he can, to put wheat in, and chenam them up, and set them round the fort curtain.”—In Wheeler, i. 168.

1809.—“…having one…room…beautifully chunammed.”—Ld. Valentia, i. 386.

Both noun and verb are used also in the Anglo-Chinese settlements.

CHUNÁRGURH, n.p. A famous rock-fort on the Ganges, above Benares, and on the right bank. The name is believed to be a corr. of Charana-giri, ‘Foot Hill,’ a name probably given from the actual resemblance of the rock, seen in longitudinal profile, to a human foot. [There is a local legend that it represents the foot of Vishnu. A native folk etymology makes it a corr. of Chandalgarh, from some legendary connection with the Bhangi tribe (see CHANDAUL). (See Crooke, Tribes and Castes, i. 263.)]

[1768.—“Sensible of the vast importance of the fort of Chunar to Sujah al Dowlah…we have directed Col. Barker to reinforce the garrison.…”—Letter to Court of Directors, in Verelst, App. 78.

[1785.—“Chunar, called by the natives Chundalghur.…”—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 442.]

CHUPATTY, s. H. chapati, an unleavened cake of bread (generally of coarse wheaten meal), patted flat with the hand, and baked upon a griddle; the usual form of native bread, and the staple food of Upper India. (See HOPPER).

1615.—Parson Terry well describes the thing, but names it not: “The ordinary sort of people eat bread made of a coarse grain, but both toothsome and wholesome and hearty. They make it up in broad cakes, thick like our oaten cakes; and then bake it upon small round iron hearths which they carry with them.”—In Purchas, ii. 1468.

1810.—“Chow-patties, or bannocks.”—Williamson, V. M. ii. 348.

1857.—“From village to village brought by one messenger and sent forward by another passed a mysterious token in the shape of one of those flat cakes made from flour and water, and forming the common bread of the people, which in their language, are called chupatties.”—Kaye’s Sepoy War, i. 570. [The original account of this by the Correspondent of the ‘Times,’ dated “Bombay, March 3, 1857,” is quoted in 2 ser. N. & Q. iii. 365.]

There is a tradition of a noble and gallant Governor-General who, when compelled to rough it for a day or two, acknowledged that “chuprassies and masaulchies were not such bad diet,” meaning Chupatties and Mussalla.

CHUPKUN, s. H. chapkan. The long frock (or cassock) which is the usual dress in Upper India of nearly all male natives who are not actual labourers or indigent persons. The word is probably of Turki or Mongol origin, and is perhaps identical with the chakman of the Ain (i. 90), a word still used in Turkistan. [Vambéry, (Sketches, 121 seqq.) describes both the Tchapan or upper coat and the Tchekmen or gown.] Hence Beames’s connection of chapkan with the idea of chap as meaning compressing or clinging [Platts chapakna, ‘to be pressed’], “a tightly-fitting coat or cassock,” is a little fanciful. (Comp. Gram. i. 212 seq.) Still this idea may have shaped the corruption of a foreign word.

1883.—“He was, I was going to say, in his shirt-sleeves, only I am not sure that he wore a shirt in those days—I think he had a chupkun, or native under-garment.”—C. Raikes, in L. of Ld. Lawrence, i. 59.

CHUPRA, n.p. Chapra, [or perhaps rather Chhapra, ‘a collection of straw huts,’ (see CHOPPER),] a town and head-quarter station of the Distr ict Saran in Bahar, on the north bank of the Ganges. 1665.—“The Holland Company have a House there (at Patna) by reason of their trade in Salt Peter, which they refine at a great Town called Choupar…10 leagues above Patna.”—Tarernier, E. T. ii. 53; [ed. Ball, i. 122].

1726.—“Sjoppera (Chupra).”—Valentijn, Chorom., &c., 147.

CHUPRASSY, s. H. chaprasi, the bearer of a chapras, i.e. a badge-plate inscribed with the name of the office to which the bearer is attached. The chaprasi is an office-messenger, or henchman, bearing such a badge on a cloth or leather belt. The term belongs to the Bengal Presidency. In Madras Peon is the usual term; in Bombay Puttywalla, (H. pattiwala), or “man of the belt.” The etymology of chapras