halalcore

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindustani حَلال خور (halāl xor) / हलालख़ोर (halālxor), from Classical Persian حلال خور (halāl xor).

Noun

halalcore (plural halalcores)

1. (British India) A sweeper or scavenger; a person of very low caste.
   • p. 1689, J. Ovington, edited by J. P. Guha, India in the Seventeenth Century‎^[1], published 1984, page 170:

     The Halalchors, (who I occasionally mentioned a little before) are another sort of Indians at Surat, the most contemptible, but extremely necessary to be there.

   • 1822, [Robert Grenville Wallace], Fifteen Years in India; or, Sketches of a Soldier's Life‎^[2], London, page 227:

     But the woman who does not burn herself in the pile with her husband is deprived of her rights. She becomes the halalcrore of the family, doomed to perform the vilest offices of an outcast from society.

   • 1998, Mark Tunick, Practices and Principles: Approaches to Ethical and Legal Judgment‎^[3], →ISBN, page 72:

     Bentham notes that killing a Hallachore who touches a man of superior tribe isn't regarded as blameworthy.

Alternative forms

• halalchor, hallachore, halalcor

Related terms

• halal

See also

• mehtar

References

• Henry Yule, A[rthur] C[oke] Burnell (1903) “halalcore”, in William Crooke, editor, Hobson-Jobson […] , London: John Murray, […], page 409.