hathi

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English

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Hindi हाथी (hāthī).

Noun

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hathi (plural hathis)

  1. (India, rare, obsolete) An elephant.
    • 1890, Rudyard Kipling, Mandalay:
      We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak. Elephints a-pilin' teak
    • 1922, Earl Louis Mountbatten Mountbatten of Burma, The Diaries of Lord Louis Mountbatten 1920-1922:
      the Hathi is a wily animal , and will face fire and steel rather than what he suspects to be a trap
    • 1923, E. H. D. Sewell, The Log of a Sportsman, page 151:
      Here were we, jampacked on a narrow track down which the hathi was certain to come if he came at all , not a fire - iron of any sort among the lot of us, to all appearances not a vestige of an escape on either side

Alternative forms

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