Chapter ROLONG to ROOM of R by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ROLONG to ROOM

ROLONG, s. Used in S. India, and formerly in W. India, for fine flour; semolina, or what is called in Bengal soojee (q.v.). The word is a corruption of Port. rolão or ralão. But this is explained by Bluteau as farina secunda. It is, he says (in Portuguese), that substance which is extracted between the best flour and the bran.

1813.—“Some of the greatest delicacies in India are now made from the rolong-flour, which is called the heart or kidney of the wheat.”—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 47; [2nd ed. i. 32].

ROOCKA, ROCCA, ROOKA, s.

a. Ar. ruk’a. A letter, a written document; a note of hand.

1680.—“One Sheake Ahmud came to Towne slyly with several peons dropping after him, bringing letters from Futty Chaun at Chingalhatt, and Ruccas from the Ser Lascar….”—Fort St. Geo. Consns. May 25. In Notes and Exts. iii. 20. [See also under AUMILDAR and JUNCAMEER.]

„ “…proposing to give 200 Pagodas Madaras Brahminy to obtain a Rocca from the Nabob that our business might go on Salabad (see SALLABAD).”—Ibid. Sept. 27, p. 35.

[1727.—“Swan…holding his Petition or Rocca above his head…”—A. Hamilton, ed. 1744, i. 199.]

[b. An ancient coin in S. India; Tel. rokkam, rokkamu, Skt. roka, ‘buying with ready money,’ from ruch, ‘to shine.’

[1875.—“The old native coins seem to have consisted of Varaghans, rookas and Doodoos. The Varaghan is what is now generally called a pagoda…. The rookas have now entirely disappeared, and have probably been melted into rupees. They varied in value from 1 to 2 Rupees. Though the coins have disappeared, the name still survives, and the ordinary name for silver money generally is rookaloo.”—Gribble, Man. of Cuddapah, 296 seq.]

ROOK, s. In chess the rook comes to us from Span. roque, and that from Ar. and Pers. rukh, which is properly the name of the famous gryphon, the roc of Marco Polo and the Arabian Nights. According to Marcel Devic it meant ‘warrior.’ It is however generally believed that this form was a mistake in transferring the Indian rath (see RUT) or ‘chariot,’ the name of the piece in India.

ROOM, n.p. ‘Turkey’ (Rum); ROOMEE, n.p. (Rumi); ‘an Ottoman Turk.’ Properly ‘a Roman.’ In older Oriental books it is used for an European, and was probably the word which Marco Polo renders as ‘a Latin’—represented in later times by firinghee (e.g. see quotation from Ibn Batuta under RAJA). But Rum, for the Roman Empire, continued to be applied to what had been part of the Roman Empire after it had fallen into the hands of the Turks, first to the Seljukian Kingdom in Anatolia, and afterwards to the Ottoman Empire seated at Constantinople. Garcia de Orta and Jarric deny the name of Rumi, as used in India, to the Turks of Asia, but they are apparently wrong in their expressions. What they seem to mean is that Turks of the Ottoman Empire were called Rumi; whereas those others in Asia of Turkish race (whom we sometimes call Toorks), as of Persia and Turkestan, were excluded from the name.

c. 1508.—“Ad haec, trans euripum, seu fretum, quod insulam fecit, in orientali continentis plaga oppidum condidit, receptaculum advenis militibus, maximo Turcis; ut ab Diensibus freto divisi, rixandi cum iis…causas procul haberent. Id oppidum primo Gogola (see GOGOLLA), dein Rumepolis vocitatum ab ipsa re….”—Maffei, p. 77.

1510.—“When we had sailed about 12 days we arrived at a city which is called Diuobandierrumi, that is ‘Diu, the port of the Turks.’…This city is subject to the Sultan of Combeia…400 Turkish merchants reside here constantly.”—Varthema, 91–92.

Bandar-i-Rumi is, as the traveller explains, the ‘Port of the Turks.’ Gogola, a suburb of Diu on the mainland, was known to the Portuguese some years later, as Vïlla dos Rumes (see GOGOLLA, and quotation from Maffei above). The quotation below from Damian a Goes alludes apparently to Gogola.

1513.—“…Vnde Ruminu Turchoruque sex millia nostros continue infestabãt.”—Emanuelis Regis Epistola, p. 21.

1514.—“They were ships belonging to Moors, or to Romi (there they give the name of Romi to a white people who are, some of them, from Armenia the Greater and the Less, others from Circassia and Tartary and Rossia, Turks and Persians of Shaesmal called the Soffi, and other renegades from all) countries.”—Giov. da Empoli, 38.

1525.—In the expenditure of Malik Aiaz we find 30 Rumes at the pay (monthly) of 100 fedeas each. The Arabis are in the same statement paid 40 and 50 fedeas, the