Dictionary

saraf en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /saˈɹɑːf/

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindustani (Hindi सर्राफ़ (sarrāf) / Urdu صَرَّاف (sarrāf) and Classical Persian صَرَّاف (sarrāf), from Arabic صَرَّاف (ṣarrāf).

Meanings

1. A provider of financial services in the Middle East and in South Asia, especially (historical) during the early modern and colonial period.
   • There is in euery place of the street exchangers of mony, by them called Xaraffos, which are all christian Iewes. 1598, Jan Huygen van Linschoten, translated by William Phillip, Discours of Voyages into ye Easte & West Indies, Bk. i, Ch. xxxiii, p. 66:
   • The mâmour... till the recent reform appointing a Controller-General of Receipts, received the taxes from the saraffs. 1877, James Carlile McCoan, Egypt As It Is, page 115:
   • They [Armenians] prospered as our ‘Sarrafs’. 1897 July, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, page 24:
   • He sent us to receive the money from his Saraf, or banker. 1811, Carsten Niebuhr, “Travels in Arabia”, in John Pinkerton, transl., A General Collection of Voyages and Travels..., volume X, page 71:

Forms

Deriveds

Shroff · shroff · Saraf

Hypernyms

banker · moneychanger · cashier · usurer