Devdas

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindi देवदास (devdās) or Bengali দেবদাস (debdaś), the name of the male lead in the 1917 Bengali-language story Devdas, readapted several times since.

Noun

Devdas (plural Devdases)

1. (India) A grieving male lover.
   • 1980, Sāhitya Akademi, Indian Literature, volume 23, page 539:

     "I don't know," he had said and sighed, Devdas style: "I don't know," Everyone wants to be a Devdas, at least for a while — or perhaps only for a while. Tragic hero.

   • 1996, Bruce Bennett, Crossing Cultures: Essays on Literature and Culture of the Asia-Pacific:

     It reminds me very much of the Devdas character that so suffuses Indian cinema, not just in the 1935 and 1955 film versions, but as a 'Devdas effect' in Hindi melodramas, especially those of Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt.

   • 2007, Anupama Chopra, King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema:

     Indians everywhere recognized that when somebody pined, longed, and raged for someone else, they were "doing a Devdas."

   • 2017, Cornelius Crowley, Heritage and Ruptures in Indian Literature, Culture and Cinema, page 198:

     The character of Kashyap's Dev, although it is built on the same model as traditional Devdases, is different and suffers for other reasons.

Anagrams

• Veddas