Chapter OOOLOOBALLONG to OPIUM of O by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Sublime Camp.’ The mixt language which grew up in the court and camp was called zaban-i-urdu, ‘the Camp Language,’ and hence we have elliptically Urdu. On the Peshawar frontier the word urdu is still in frequent use as applied to the camp of a field-force.

1247.—“Post haec venimus ad primam ordam Imperatoris, in quâ erat una de uxoribus suis; et quia nondum videramus Imperatorem, noluerint nos vocare nec intromittere ad ordam ipsius.”—Plano Carpini, p. 752.

1254.—“Et sicut populus Israel sciebat, unusquisque ad quam regionem tabernaculi deberet figere tentoria, ita ipsi sciunt ad quod latus curie debeant se collocare.…Unde dicitur curia Orda lingua eorum, quod sonat medium, quia semper est in medio hominum suorum.…”—William of Rubruk, p. 267.

1404.—“And the Lord (Timour) was very wroth with his Mirassaes (Mirzas), because he did not see the Ambassador at this feast, and because the Truximan (Interpreter) had not been with them…and he sent for the Truximan and said to him: ‘How is it that you have enraged and vexed the Lord? Now since you were not with the Frank ambassadors, and to punish you, and ensure your always being ready, we order your nostrils to be bored, and a cord put through them, and that you be led through the whole Ordo as a punishment.’”—Clavijo, § cxi.

c. 1440.—“What shall I saie of the great and innumerable moltitude of beastes that are in this Lordo ?…if you were disposed in one daie to bie a thousande or ij.^m1 horses you shulde finde them to sell in this Lordo, for they go in heardes like sheepe.…”—Josafa Barbaro, old E.T. Hak. Soc. 20.

c. 1540.—“Sono diuisi i Tartari in Horde, e Horda nella lor lingua significa ragunãza di popolo vnito e concorde a similitudine d’vna città.”—P. Jovio, delle Cose della Moscovia, in Ramusio, ii. f. 133.

1545.—“The Tartars are divided into certain groups or congregations, which they call hordes. Among which the Savola horde or group is the first in rank.”—Herberstein, in Ramusio, ii. 171.

[1560.—“They call this place (or camp) Ordu bazaar.”—Tenreiro, ed. 1829, ch. xvii. p. 45.]

1673.—“L’Ourdy sortit d’Andrinople pour aller au camp. Le mot ourdy signifie camp, et sous ce nom sont compris les mestiers que sont necessaires pour la commodité du voyage.”—Journal d’Ant. Galland, i. 117.

[1753.—“That part of the camp called in Turkish the Ordubazar or camp-market, begins at the end of the square fronting the guard-rooms.…”—Hanway, Hist. Account, i. 247.]

OORIAL, Panj. urial, Ovis cycloceros, Hutton, [Ovis vignei, Blanford (Mammalia, 497), also called the Sha;] the wild sheep of the Salt Range and Sulimani Mountains.

OORIYA, n.p. The adjective ‘pertaining to Orissa’ (native, language, what not); Hind. Uriya. The proper name of the country is Odra-desa, and Or-desa, whence Or-iya and Ur-iya. [“The Ooryah bearers were an old institution in Calcutta, as in former days palankeens were chiefly used. From a computation made in 1776, it is stated that they were in the habit of carrying to their homes every year sums of money sometimes as much as three lakhs made by their business” (Carey, Good Old Days of Honble. John Company, ii. 148).]

OOTACAMUND, n.p. The chief station in the Neilgherry Hills, and the summer residence of the Governor of Madras. The word is a corruption of the Badaga name of the site of ‘Stone-house,’ the first European house erected in those hills, properly Hottaga-mand (see Metz, Tribes of the Neilgherries, 6). [Mr. Grigg (Man. of the Nilagiris, 6, 189), followed by the Madras Gloss., gives Tam. Ottagaimandu, from Can. ottai, ‘dwarf bamboo,’ Tam. kay, ‘fruit,’ mandu, ‘a Toda village.’]

OPAL, s. This word is certainly of Indian origin: Lat. opalus, Greek, [Greek Text] opallioV, Skt. upala, ‘a stone.’ The European word seems first to occur in Pliny. We do not know how the Skt. word received this specific meaning, but there are many analogous cases.

OPIUM, s. This word is in origin Greek, not Oriental. [The etymology accepted by Platts, Skt. ahiphena, ‘snake venom’ is not probable.] But from the Greek [Greek Text] opion the Arabs took afyun which has sometimes reacted on old spellings of the word. The collection of the [Greek Text] opoV, or juice of the poppy-capsules, is mentioned by Dioscorides (c. A.D. 77), and Pliny gives a pretty full account of the drug as opion (see Hanbury and Flückiger, 40). The Opium-poppy was introduced into China, from Arabia, at the beginning of the 9th century, and its earliest Chinese name is A-fu-yung, a representation of the Arabic name. The Arab. afyun is sometimes corruptly, called afyin, of which afin, ‘imbecile, is a