Dictionary

gharry en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈɡæɹi/

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindi गाड़ी (gāṛī) / Urdu گاڑی (gāṛī, “wheeled cart, carriage; car, truck, bus”), from Sauraseni Prakrit 𑀕𑀟𑁆𑀟 (gaḍḍa), 𑀕𑀟𑁆𑀟𑀻 (gaḍḍī), from Ashokan Prakrit *𑀕𑀸𑀟𑁆𑀟- (*gāḍḍa-).

Meanings

1. (India, Myanmar) A wheeled cart or carriage, usually horsedrawn.
   • There were ranks of gharries that appeared to do no serious business, although occasionally a group of Shans would wake up a driver, bundle into one and go for a quick spin round the bazaar, much as in the old days one took a five shilling flip around the aerodrome in a plane. 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth:
   • He thought of Rosa McFee, the Eurasian girl he had seduced in Mandalay in 1913. The way he used to sneak down to the house in a gharry with the shutters down […] 1934, George Orwell, chapter 10, in Burmese Days:
   • My British friends saw me in a gharry, a little horse-drawn cab used mainly for ephemeral trysts in transit, and offered me the kindly advice that a consul should never use these vehicles for any purpose. 1977, Pablo Neruda, chapter 4, in Hardie St. Martin, transl., Memoirs, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, page 86:
   • A ramshackle gharry, all dust and venetian blinds, pulled up short opposite the group, and the driver, throwing up his right foot over his knee, gave himself up to the critical examination of his toes. 1900, Joseph Conrad, chapter 5, in Lord Jim:
   • “I shall stand, always with that mauve and white ‘cloud’ over my head, while the wet soaks into my dear, old, venerable feet and Tom swears and shouts for the mem-sahib's gharri.” 1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 19:
2. (India, abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, historical) Ellipsis of palkigari.
   alt of palkigari
   • Once, during the last campaign we were in a great strait, to get up to Lahore from Allahabad, and, on applying one afternoon at the Post Office for a horsed palkee-garee we were informed... "Well, then, when ever can we have it," we rather angrily asked—"Oh!" said the dear Baboo, "on Saturday next" (that day being Wednesday) "if a lady and gentleman, at Mr. Berrill's hotel, do not take it..." Even in these "piping times of peace," we hear of people having to wait two or three days to get a public garee, along the main road of India. 1850 March, “Journeys in India”, in The Benares Magazine, volume III, number III, page 231:
3. (South-Africa, slang) A jeep or small truck for conveying troops.

Forms

Relateds

palkigari