Chapter CREDERE to CROW-PHEASANT of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

CREDERE to CROW-PHEASANT

CREDERE, DEL. An old mercantile term.

1813.—“Del credere, or guaranteeing the responsibility of persons to whom goods were sold—commission m per cent.”—Milburn, i. 235.

CREOLE, s. This word is never used by the English in India, though the mistake is sometimes made in England of supposing it to be an Anglo-Indian term. The original, so far as we can learn, is Span. criollo, a word of uncertain etymology, whence the French créole, a person of European blood but colonial birth. See Skeat, who concludes that criollo is a negro corruption of criadillo, dim. of criado, and is=‘little nursling.’ Criados, criadas, according to Pyrard de Laval, [Hak. Soc. ii. 89 seq.] were used at Goa for male and female servants. And see the passage quoted under NEELAM from Correa, where the words ‘apparel and servants’ are in the original ‘todo o fato e criados.’ 1782.—“Mr. Macintosh being the son of a Scotch Planter by a French Creole, of one of the West India Islands, is as swarthy and ill- looking a man as is to be seen on the Portugueze Walk on the Royal Exchange.”—Price’s Observations, &c. in Price’s Tracts, i. 9.

CROCODILE, s. This word is seldom used in India; alligator (q.v.) being the term almost invariably employed.

c. 1328.—“There be also coquodriles, which are vulgarly called calcatix [Lat. calcatrix, ‘a cockatrice’].…These animals be like lizards, and have a tail stretched over all like unto a lizard’s,” &c.—Friar Jordanus, p. 19.

1590.—“One Crocodile was so huge and greedy that he devoured an Alibamba, that is a chained company of eight or nine slaves; but the indigestible Iron paid him his wages, and murthered the murtherer.”—Andrew Battel (West Africa), in Purchas, ii. 985.

[1870.—“…I have been compelled to amputate the limbs of persons seized by crocodiles (Mugger).…The Alligator (gharial) sometimes devours children.…”—Chevers, Med. Jurispr. in India, 366 seq.].

CRORE, s. One hundred lakhs, i.e. 10,000,000. Thus a crore of rupees was for many years almost the exact equivalent of a million sterling. It had once been a good deal more, and has now been for some years a good deal less. The H. is karor, Skt. koti.

c. 1315.—“Kales Dewar, the ruler of Ma’bar, enjoyed a highly prosperous life.…His coffers were replete with wealth, insomuch that in the city of Mardi (Madura) there were 1200 crores of gold deposited, every crore being equal to a thousand laks, and every lak to one hundred thousand dinars.”—Wassaf, in Elliot, iii. 52. N.B.—The reading of the word crore is however doubtful here (see note by Elliot in loco). In any case the value of crore is misstated by Wassaf.

c. 1343.—“They told me that a certain Hindu farmed the revenue of the city and its territories (Daulatabad) for 17 karcr…as for the karor it is equivalent to 100 laks, and the lak to 100,000 dinars.”—Ibn Batuta, iv. 49.

c. 1350.—“In the course of three years he had misappropriated about a kror of tankas from the revenue.”—Zia-uddin-Barni, in Elliot, iii. 247.

c. 1590.—“Zealous and upright men were put in charge of the revenues, each over one Kror of dams.” (These, it appears, were called kroris.)—Ain-i-Akbari, i. 13.

1609.—“The King’s yeerely Income of his Crowne Land is fiftie Crou of Rupias, every Crou is an hundred Leckes, and every Lecke is an hundred thousand Rupias.”—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 216.

1628.—“The revenue of all the territories under the Emperors of Delhi amounts, according to the Royal registers, to six arbs and thirty krors of dams. One arb is equal to a hundred krors (a kror being ten millions) and a hundred Krors of dams are equivalent to two krors and fifty lacs of rupees.”—Muhammad Sharif Hanafi, in Elliot, vii. 138.

1690.—“The Nabob or Governour of Bengal was reputed to have left behind him at his Death, twenty Courous of Roupies: A kourou is an hundred thousand lacks.”—Ovington, 189.

1757.—“In consideration of the losses which the English Company have sustained…I will give them one crore of rupees.”—Orme, ii. 162 (ed. 1803).

c. 1785.—“The revenues of the city of Decca, once the capital of Bengal, at a low estimation amount annually to two kherore.”—Carraccioli’s Life of Clive, i. 172.

1797.—“An Englishman, for H. E.’s amusement, introduced the elegant European diversion of a race in sacks by old women: the Nabob was delighted beyond measure, and declared that though he had spent a crore