Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.15805

c10.15805

WINTER, *s.* This term is constantly applied by the old writers to the rainy season, a usage now quite unknown to Anglo-Indians. It may have originated in the fact that winter is in many parts of the Mediterranean coast so frequently a season of rain, whilst rain is rare in summer. Compare the fact that *shitā* in Arabic is indifferently ‘winter,’ or ‘rain’; the winter season being the rainy season. *Shitā* is the same word that appears in Canticles ii. 11: "The winter (*sethāv*) is past, the rain is over and gone."