Chapter HANSALERI to HAVILDAR of H by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

HANSALERI to HAVILDAR

HANSALERI, s. Table-servant’s Hind. for ‘horse-radish’! “A curious corruption, and apparently influenced by saleri, ‘celery’”; (Mr. M. L. Dames, in Panjab N. and Q. ii. 184).

HANSIL, s. A hawser, from the English (Roebuck).

HANSPEEK, USPUCK, &c., s. Sea Hind. Aspak. A handspike, from the English.

HARAKIRI, s. This, the native name of the Japanese rite of suicide committed as a point of honour or substitute for judicial execution,has long been interpreted as “happy despatch,” but what the origin of this curious error is we do not know. [The N.E.D. s.v. dispatch, says that it is humorous.] The real meaning is realistic in the extreme, viz., hara, ‘belly,’ kiri, ‘to cut.’

[1598.—“And it is often seene that they rip their own bellies open.”—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 153.

[1615.—“His mother cut her own belly.”—Foster, Letters, iv. 45.]

1616.—“Here we had news how Galsa Same was to passe this way to morrow to goe to a church near Miaco, called Coye; som say to cut his bellie, others say to be shaved a prist and to remeane theare the rest of his dais.”—Cocks’s Diary, i. 164.

1617.—“The King demanded 800 tais from Shosque Dono, or else to cut his belly, whoe, not having it to pay, did it.”—Ibid. 337, see also ii. 202.

[1874.—See the elaborate account of the rite in Mitford, Tales of Old Japan, 2nd ed. 329 seqq. For a similar custom among the Karens, see M‘Mahon, Karens of the Golden Chersonese, 294.]

HARAMZADA, s. A scoundrel; literally ‘misbegotten’; a common term of abuse. It is Ar.—P. haramzada, ‘son of the unlawful.’ Haram is from a root signifying sacer (see under HAREM), and which appears as Hebrew in the sense of ‘devoting to destruction,’ and of ‘a ban.’ Thus in Numbers xxi. 3: “They utterly destroyed them and their cities; and he called the name of the place Hormah.” [See Encycl. Bibl. i. 468; ii. 2110.]

[1857.—“I am no advocate for slaying Shahzadas or any such-like Haramzadas without trial.”—Bosworth Smith, L. of Ld. Lawrence, ii. 251.]

HAREM, s. Ar. haram, harim, i.e. sacer, applied to the women of the family and their apartment. This word is not now commonly used in India, zenana (q.v.) being the common word for ‘the women of the family,’ or their apartments. 1298.—“…car maintes homes emorurent e mantes dames en furent veves…e maintes autres dames ne furent à toz jorz mès en plores et en lermes: ce furent les meres et les araines de homes, qe hi morurent.”—Marco Polo, in Old Text of Soc. de Géographie, 251.

1623.—“Non so come sciah Selim ebbe notizia di lei e s’innamorò. Volle condurla nel suo haram o gynaeceo, e ? quivi appresso di sè come una delle altre concubine; ma questa donna (Nurmahal) che era sopra modo astuta…ricusò.”—P. della Vall ii. 525; [Hak. Soc. i. 53].

1630.—“This Duke here and in other seralios (or Harams as the Persians term them) has above 300 concubines.”—Herbert,, 139.

1676.—“In the midst of the large Gallery is a Nich in the Wall, into which the King descends out of his Haram by a private pair of Stairs.”—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 49; [ed. Ball, i. 101].

1726.—“On the Ganges also lies a noble fortress, with the Palace of the old Emperor of Hindostan, with his Hharaam or women’s apartment.…”—Valentijn, v. 168.

[1727.—“The King…took his Wife into his own Harran or Seraglio.…”—A. Hamilton, ed. 1744, i. 171.

[1812.—“Adjoining to the Chel Sitoon is the Harem; the term in Persia is applied to the establishments of the great, zenana is confined to those of inferior people.”—Morier, Journey through Persia, &c., 166.]

HARRY, s. This word is quite obsolete. Wilson gives Hari as Beng. ‘A servant of the lowest class, a sweeper.’ [The word means ‘a collector of bones,’ Skt. hadda, ‘a bone’; for the caste, see R isley, Taibes of Bengal, i. 314 seqq.] M.-Gen. Keatinge remarks that they are the goldsmiths of Assam; they are village watchmen in Bengal. (See under PYKE.) In two of the quotations below, Harry is applied to