Chapter KING-CROW to KITMUTGAR of K by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

KING-CROW to KITMUTGAR

KING-CROW, s. A glossy black bird, otherwise called Drongo shrike, about as large as a small pigeon, with a long forked tail, Dicrurus macrocercus, Vieillot, found all over India. “It perches generally on some bare branch, whence it can have a good look-out, or the top of a house, or post, or telegraph-wire, frequently also on low bushes, hedges, walks, or ant-hills” (Jerdon).

1883.—“… the King-crow … leaves the whole bird and beast tribe far behind in originality and force of character. … He does not come into the house, the telegraph wire suits him better. Perched on it he can see what is going on … drops, beak foremost, on the back of the kite … spies a bee-eater capturing a goodly moth, and after a hot chase, forces it to deliver up its booty.”—The Tribes on My Frontier, 143.

KIOSQUE, s. From the Turki and Pers. kushk or kushk, ‘a pavilion, a villa,’ &c. The word is not Anglo- Indian, nor is it a word, we think, at all common in modern native use. c. 1350.—“When he was returned from his expedition, and drawing near to the capital, he ordered his son to build him a palace, or as those people call it a kushk, by the side of a river which runs at that place, which is called Afghanpur.”—Ibn Batuta, iii. 212.

1623.—“There is (in the garden) running water which issues from the entrance of a great kiosck, or covered place, where one may stay to take the air, which is built at the end of the garden over a great pond which adjoins the outside of the garden, so that, like the one at Surat, it serves also for the public use of the city.”—P. della Valle, i. 535; [Hak. Soc. i. 68].

KIRBEE, KURBEE, s. Hind. karbi, kirbi, Skt. kadamba, ‘the stalk of a pot-herb.’ The stalks of juar (see JOWAUR), used as food for cattle.

[1809.—“We also fell in with large ricks of kurbee, the dried stalks of Bajiru and Jooar, two inferior kinds of grain; an excellent fodder for the camels.”—Broughton, Letters from a Mahratta Camp, ed. 1892, p. 41.

[1823.—“Ordinary price of the straw (kirba) at harvest-time Rs. 1 ½ per hundred sheaves. …”—Trans. Lit. Soc. Bombay, iii. 243.]

KISHM, n.p. The largest of the islands in the Persian Gulf, called by the Portuguese Queixome and the like, and sometimes by our old travellers, Kishmish. It is now more popularly called Jazirat-al-tawila, in Pers. Jaz. daraz, ‘the Long Island’ (like the Lewes), and the name of Kishm is confined to the chief town, at the eastern extremity, where still remains the old Portuguese fort taken in 1622, before which William Baffin the Navigator fell. But the oldest name is the still not quite extinct Brokht, which closely preserves the Greek Oaracta.

B.C. 325.—“And setting sail (from Harmozeia), in a run of 300 stadia they passed a desert and bushy island, and moored beside another island which was large and inhabited. The small desert island was named Organa (no doubt Gerun, afterwards the site of N. Hormuz—see ORMUS); and the one at which they anchored ’Oápakta, planted with vines and date-palms, and with plenty of corn.”—Arrian, Voyage of Nearchus, ch. xxxvii.

1538.—“… so I hasted with him in the company of divers merchants for to go from Babylon (orig. Babylonia) to Caixem, whence he carried me to Ormuz. …”—F. M: Pinto, chap. vi. (Cogan, p. 9).

1553.—“Finally, like a timorous and despairing man … he determined to leave the city (Ormuz) deserted, and to pass over to the Isle of Queixome. That island is close to the mainland of Persia, and is within sight of Ormuz at 3 leagues distance.”—Barros, III. vii. 4.

1554.—“Then we departed to the Isle of Kais or Old Hormuz, and then to the island of Brakhta, and some others of the Green Sea, i.e. in the Sea of Hormuz, without being able to get any intelligence.”—Sidi ’Ali, 67.

[1600.—“Queixiome.” See under RESHIRE.

[1623.—“They say likewise that Ormuz and Keschiome are extremely well fortified by the Moors.”—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 188; in i. 2, Kesom.

[1652.—“Keckmishe.” See under CONGO BUNDER.]

1673.—“The next morning we had brought Loft on the left hand of the Island of Kismash, leaving a woody Island uninhabited between Kismash and the Main.”—Fryer, 320.

1682.—“The Island Queixome, or Queixume, or Quizome, otherwise called by travellers and geographers Kechmiche, and by the natives Brokt. …”—Nieuhof, Zee en Lant-Reize, ii. 103.

1817.—

“… Vases filled with Kishmee’s golden wine And the red weepings of the Shiraz vine.”