Dictionary

coolie en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈkuːli/
• (Australia) audio

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindustani (Hindi क़ुली (qulī) / Urdu قلی (qulī, “hired laborer”)), from Chagatai قلی (quli, “servant, slave”), ultimately from Proto-Turkic *kul. Another theory says that it is named after Gujarati કોળી (koḷī), a Gujarati tribe or caste. Other forms occur in Bengali কুলি (kuli) and Tamil கூலி (kūli, “daily hire”). Possibly also influenced by Hindustani (कोली (kolī) / کولی (kolī, “weaver; low-class”)), or Persian کول (kūl, “shoulder [upon which goods are hauled]”). In Kurdish Koile (کۆیلە) and Quli (قولى): Slave, Servant. Kawli (Keweli): Low-Class, Gypsy. Mandarin 苦力 (kǔlì, “hard labor”) may also have been influenced by cognates of the above Hindi word in other languages and may have further influenced English.

Meanings

1. An unskilled Asian worker, usually of Chinese or Indian descent; a labourer; a porter. Coolies were frequently transported to other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries as indentured labourers.
   • One day when the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid had just arrived in the Cemetery, they saw some coolies breaking ground. 1889, Rudyard Kipling, “At the Pit's Mouth”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 52:
   • Community histories did not necessarily feature the coolie, partly due to the fact that “coolie” is a classed term. Asian coolies were regarded as lowly laborers. 2008, Lisa Yun, The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba, Temple University Press, page xix:
   • Outside, beyond the sun-baked station yard, a rice mill chugged away in the distance, and sweating coolies unloaded bags of rice from creaking bullock carts. 1943 November and December, G. T. Porter, “The Lines Behind the Lines in Burma”, in Railway Magazine, page 325:
   • Coolie-identity is as much the product of self-perception as it is the construction of a category by those who did not belong to it. It is these constructions that historically constituted a coolie in the matrix of power relations which this essay seeks to partially comprehend. 1992, Jan Breman, E. Valentine Daniel, “Conclusion: The Making of a Coolie”, in E. Valentine Daniel, Henry Bernstein, Tom Brass, editors, Plantations, Proletarians, and Peasants in Colonial Asia, Frank Cass & Co., page 268:
   • From Hui-li-chou northwards I was escorted by real soldiers, quite of the new service. They looked rather shipshape in khaki suits and puttees, and their guns were of a good model, but they handled them in careless fashion at first, belabouring laden ponies and even coolies who were slow in getting out of the way of my chair. 1913, Elizabeth Kimball Kendall, A Wayfarer in China:
2. (Caribbean, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad-and-Tobago, ethnic, qualifier:South Africa and other parts of Africa, slur) An Indian or a person of Indian descent.
   • Even a coolie would have been better. 2014, Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings, Oneworld Publications (2015), page 199:
   • Well, he and his troops had shown the koefietjies-the little coolies-how quickly and how easily Afrikaner explosive shells could knock it down. 1991, Larry Bond, Patrick Larkin, Vortex, page 56:

Forms

Deriveds

Coolie Christmas · coolieism · coolie hat · coolitude · coolie orange

Descendants

coolie · cúli · culi

Relateds

koolie

Translations (40)

hi कुली (unskilled Asian worker) · ja 苦力 (unskilled Asian worker) · vi cu li (unskilled Asian worker) · id pekerja kasar (unskilled Asian worker) · fr coolie (unskilled Asian worker) · nl koelie (unskilled Asian worker) · ru ку́ли (unskilled Asian worker) · de Kuli (unskilled Asian worker) · my ကူလီ (unskilled Asian worker) · pl kulis (unskilled Asian worker) · yue 咕哩 (unskilled Asian worker) · hu kuli (unskilled Asian worker) · pt cole (unskilled Asian worker) · nan-hbl 苦力 (unskilled Asian worker) · nan-hbl 苦力 (unskilled Asian worker) · nan-hbl 苦役 (unskilled Asian worker) · pt cule (unskilled Asian worker) · hi मज़दूर (unskilled Asian worker) · sv kuli (unskilled Asian worker) · tr köle (unskilled Asian worker) · km គូលី (unskilled Asian worker) · af koelie (unskilled Asian worker) · fi kuli (unskilled Asian worker) · pt cúli (unskilled Asian worker) · hi क़ुली (unskilled Asian worker) · ko 쿨리 (unskilled Asian worker) · cs kuli (unskilled Asian worker) · el κούλης (unskilled Asian worker) · hi मजदूर (unskilled Asian worker) · es culi (unskilled Asian worker) · vi phu (unskilled Asian worker) · ur قلی (unskilled Asian worker) · id kuli (unskilled Asian worker) · cmn 苦力 (unskilled Asian worker) · sk kuli (unskilled Asian worker) · ru чу́рка (unskilled Asian worker) · nan-hbl 居里 (unskilled Asian worker) · ms kuli (unskilled Asian worker) · sw kuli (unskilled Asian worker) · ru чернома́зый (unskilled Asian worker)