Gentoo

English

Etymology

Of Anglo-Indian origin (17th century), apparently a borrowing from Portuguese gentio (“heathen”) (compare gentile (“pagan”)).

Noun

Gentoo (plural Gentoos)

1. (historical) A non-Muslim inhabitant of India, a Hindu; specifically, in Southern India, a speaker of Telugu.
   • 1786, Richard Payne Knight, On the Worship of Priapus, section XI:

     The Greeks, and all the Celtic nations, accordingly, burned the bodies of the dead, as the Gentoos do at this day; while the Egyptians, among whom fuel was extremely scarce, placed them in pyramidal monuments, which were the symbols of fire; hence come those prodigious structures which still adorn that country.

   • 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Spiritual Laws” in Essays (First Series), Boston: James Munroe, p. 133,^[1]

     The poor mind does not seem to itself to be any thing, unless it have an outside badge, — some Gentoo diet, or Quaker coat, or Calvinistic prayer- meeting, or philanthropic society, or a great donation, or a high office, or, any how, some wild contrasting action to testify that it is somewhat.

2. The gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua), a species of penguin.

Proper noun

Gentoo

1. (historical) The Telugu language.

Further reading

• Henry Yule, A[rthur] C[oke] Burnell (1903) “Gentoo”, in William Crooke, editor, Hobson-Jobson […] , London: John Murray, […], page 368.

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