Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A person of high rank, especially in India.
- noun The rank held in the Egyptian army by the British commander-in-chief in Egypt between 1883 and 1899 during the period of British occupation of Egypt.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In India: A chief or military officer; a person in command or authority.
- noun Same as
sirdar-bearer .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A native chief in Hindostan; a headman.
- noun In Turkey, Egypt, etc., a commander in chief, esp. the one commanding the Anglo-Egyptian army.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A high-ranking person in
India and other areas of west-central Asia; achief , aheadman . - noun The leader of a group of
Sherpa mountain guides .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an important person in India
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word sirdar.
Examples
-
A couple of our porters were also suffering from the height, and Pasang, our Sherpa sirdar (leader), was worried.
-
A couple of our porters were also suffering from the height, and Pasang, our Sherpa sirdar (leader), was worried.
-
In 1991 he joined International Trekkers (Nepal) as a sirdar.
-
The sirdar, a Bengali called Govinda, has a fifteen-year-old daughter, Soogee.
'The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul' 2008
-
Then, by chance, an Indian sirdar — a driver or overseer — learns that he is a Brahmin and can read Sanskrit.
'The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul' 2008
-
He had forcefully suppressed any nationalist rumblings, even banning Wilfrid Blunt from entering the country, and had organized the training of a new Egyptian army, staffed by British officers and commanded by a new sirdar, Major General Francis Grenfell.
Three Empires on the Nile Dominic Green 2007
-
So long as the Egyptian surplus was under the control of the Commission of the Debt, and Baring and the sirdar could guarantee the Suez Canal and the India Route, Salisbury would permit no military operations.
Three Empires on the Nile Dominic Green 2007
-
Finding the sirdar on horseback with his staff, Churchill estimated that the khalifa could be little more than an hour away.
Three Empires on the Nile Dominic Green 2007
-
The sirdar liked his relationships distant and productive.
Three Empires on the Nile Dominic Green 2007
-
Intensely ambitious, Churchill was “deeply anxious to share” in the imminent clash between sirdar and khalifa.
Three Empires on the Nile Dominic Green 2007
madmouth commented on the word sirdar
also sardar
May 1, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word sirdar
"My great-grandfather had been chosen to be a sirdar, in charge of the field hands, and after his contract was over, he purchased land and prospered."
Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos, Sugar Changed the World (Boston and New York: Clarion Books, 2010), 4.
January 9, 2018