Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.16013

c10.16013

Various suggestions as to its derivation have been made on the supposition that it is of Indian origin. Borrow has explained the word as 'a person has explained the word as 'a person of mixt blood,' deriving it from the Skt. sankara, 'made up.' It is true that varna sankara is used for an admixture of castes and races (e.g. in Bhāgavad Gītā, i. 41, &c.), but it is not the name of any caste, nor would people to whom such an opprobrious epithet had been applied be likely to carry it with them to distant lands. A writer in the Saturday Review once suggested the Pers. zīngar, 'a saddler.' Not at all probable. In Sleeman's *Ramaseeana* or Vocabulary of the peculiar Language used by the Thugs (Calcutta, 1836), p. 85, we find: