Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An indigenous soldier serving in the army of a foreign conqueror, especially an Indian soldier serving under British command in India.
- n. The lowest enlisted rank in the British Indian army and its successors, equivalent to private.
- n. One holding this rank.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In India, a native soldier disciplined and uniformed according to European regulations; especially, a native soldier of the British army in India. The officers of sepoys have usually been European, and those of the higher ranks are exclusively so.
Wiktionary
- n. A native soldier of the East Indies, employed in the service of a European colonial power, notably the British India army (first under the British-chartered East India Company, later in the crown colony), but also France and Portugal.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A native of India employed as a soldier in the service of a European power, esp. of Great Britain; an Oriental soldier disciplined in the European manner.
Etymologies
- From Portuguese sipae, from Urdu سپاہی (sipāhī), from Persian سپاهی (sepâhi, "soldier, horseman"), from سپاه (sepâh, "army"). Compare spahi. (Wiktionary)
- Probably from Portuguese sipae, from Urdu sipāhī, from Persian, cavalryman, from sipāh, army. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Like his mother, he has positioned himself as a "sepoy" of the poor, untouchables and tribals, as he himself tells it.”
The Wall Street Journal: A Look at the Man Who Could Be India's King
“Although not far, the distance was too great for Hukam Singh to cover on foot, for he had been wounded in the leg while serving as a sepoy in a British regiment.”
“Now, on climbing into the back of the cart, the former sepoy sat facing to the rear, with his bundle balanced on his lap, to prevent its coming into direct contact with any of the driver's belongings.”
“What Ilderim said was probably true, too; Cawnpore and the other river strongholds would be where our generals would concentrate - I could get back among my own kind, and shed this filthy beard and sepoy kit and feel civilised again.”
“Moore took me round the entrenchment, stooping as he walked and I hobbled, for the small-arms fire from the distant sepoy lines kept whistling overhead, smacking into the barrack-wall, and every so often a large shot would plump into the enclosure or smash another lump out of the building.”
“It is a lie that the sepoy Pandy was drunk!" cries he.”
“O'Toole pointed to the small sepoy, who had managed to pull himself well up his rope, getting his elbow in the bight of it, and was tugging at the noose with his other hand.”
“Men were struggling in the water only a few yards from me - I saw a British soldier sabred down, another floundering back as a sepoy shot him point-blank through the body, and a third, thrust through with a bayonet, sinking down slowly on the muddy shore.”
“Nay, the Rani will pay it from her treasury," says I, giving him my shrill sepoy giggle.”
“Of course they'd taken me for a pandy - with my matted hair and beard and filthy and ragged sepoy uniform; they'd seen I wasn't dead, and decided to execute me in style, along with other prisoners.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sepoy’.
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Humours of Old Bombay
Terms that call to mind British India.
palkee, chee-chee, dorian, Hindoo, dinghee-wallah, garee, hamal, banghy, hookah-bardar, dak, ghat, mussalchee and 133 more...
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The sun never sets
viceroy, pondicherry, nabob, pukka sahib, ayah, bridge, crore, parsee, scandal point, madras, sepoy, kerala and 21 more...
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Joycean Vocab
You ain't read no English til you read Joyce.
rasher, cygnet, usquebaugh, ephebe, entelechy, kish, caul, vicereine, atelier, daguerreotype, communard, connubial and 99 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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Soldiers and Sailors
Types and nicknames.
point man, legionary, man-at-arms, trooper, janissary, marine, lobsterback, redcoat, blackcoat, guardsman, billman, foot soldier and 95 more...
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Learned (or Encountered) in Reading
I have a list for words learned from Newsweek; here's where I keep all the stuff from other shit I read.
Except when I'm looking stuff up and find new words that way. Those go on their...cellie, laminectomy, mridangam, terroir, hypospadias, crus, corpora cavernosa, crura, uretheral meatus, bartholin's gland, coloquintida, colopexy and 921 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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bookworm's bacchanal
a must for every word anaconda
goetic, kakodemon, agathodemon, aspergill, alcalde, ithyphallic, camorra, apozemical, paludal, subadar, sepoy, adytum and 11 more...
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Good words
Words I like.
unacceptable, sprezzatura, milquetoast, antinomianism, gossamer, filigree, louche, crepuscular, whorish, blogorrhea, cruciverbalist, eleemosynary and 68 more...
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foreign affairs
abacost, abra, zamindar, wampum, chobdar, chota-hazri, chandoo, dacoit, Devanagari, dewan, gen-gen, gharry and 87 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for sepoy.
chained_bear "Although rumblings had been apparent for some time among discontented sepoys (Indian infantrymen) and in the bazaars, few of the ruling political class or the military hierarchy suspected that a widespread uprising would ensue."
—Annabel Venning, Following the Drum: The Lives of Army Wives and Daughters Past and Present (London: Headline, 2005), 214 May 18, 2010
chained_bear "The earliest cases in Bombay erupted on a transport soon after its arrival May 29. First seven police sepoys who worked the docks were admitted to the police hospital..."
—John M. Barry, The Great Influenza (NY: Penguin Books, 2004), 172 Feb 13, 2009
trivet Indian soldier Feb 7, 2007