Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.47

c10.47

ACHEEN, n.p. (P. Āchīn [Tam. Attai, Malay Acheh, Achih] ‘a woodleech’). The name applied by us to the State and town at the N.W. angle of Sumatra, which was long, and especially during the 16th and 17th centuries, the greatest native power on that Island. The proper Malay name of the place is Acheh. The Portuguese generally called it Achem (or frequently by the adhesion of the genitive preposition, Dachem, so that Sir F. Greville below makes two kingdoms), but our Acheen seems to have been derived from mariners of the P. Gulf or W. India, for we find the name so given (Āchīn) in the Āīn-i-Akbarī, and in the Geog. Tables of Ṣādiḳ Isfahānī. This form may have been suggested by a jingling analogy, such as Orientals love, with Māchīn (Macheen). See also under LOOTY.