ghungroo

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindi घुँघरू (ghuṅghrū).

Noun

ghungroo (plural ghungroos)

1. (music) A small metallic bell, usually part of a set strung together and worn on an anklet, especially by classical Indian dancers.
   • 2021, “On the Ghungroos: Ankle-bells of Servitude, and Mastery”, in Donovan Roebert, editor, Essays on Classical Indian Dance‎^[1], CRC Press, →ISBN:

     Every dancer cherishes her ghungroos, and no wonder. From the time she first learnt to use her feet in step, they have been with her in ever-increasing numbers, and now, at the height of her artistic maturity, two-hundred or more adorn her ankles where once there had been only ten or twenty.

   • 2023, Radhika Iyengar, Fire on the Ganges, Fourth Estate, page 158:

     His other meagre finds include a lone ghungroo—a tiny silver orb that once belonged on an anklet—and what might have once been a copper nose pin.