Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A word or phrase borrowed by one language from another and modified in pronunciation to fit the set of sounds the borrowing language typically uses.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

After the specialized glossary Hobson-Jobson which took its name from a rendering by British soldiers in India of the lament يا حسن يا حسين (yā ħassan! yā ħussayn!, "O Hassan! O Hussein!") uttered by Shia muslims crowds during the processions of their main religious event, the mourning of Muharran. Actually, the expression has taken the meaning of : "feast, festival".

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Examples

  • SHAMPOO 1. Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary, eds.

    The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010

  • SHAMPOO 1. Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary, eds.

    The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010

  • There's a lot of adventuring, to-ing and fro-ing, and rather more eating of raw corpses than I had anticipated; plus a climactic big battle against the subterranean, DeepSpaceNineishly-named Jemadar presumablym like the Trek scripters, Burroughs also browsed his Hobson-Jobson before the hero Julian and his moon maid love-interest finally escape back to Earth.

    Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Moon Maid (1926) Adam Roberts 2010

  • There's a lot of adventuring, to-ing and fro-ing, and rather more eating of raw corpses than I had anticipated; plus a climactic big battle against the subterranean, DeepSpaceNineishly-named Jemadar presumablym like the Trek scripters, Burroughs also browsed his Hobson-Jobson before the hero Julian and his moon maid love-interest finally escape back to Earth.

    Archive 2010-03-01 Adam Roberts 2010

  • What I found in Yule, Hobson-Jobson, p 861 excuse loss of diacriticals: "Sackcloth", often used in the masochistic sense of "hair shirt", apparently traces back to the Persian "Sakkalat, saklatun", which meant a kind of woollen broadcloth.

    languagehat.com: MORE PYNCHONIAN VOCAB. 2005

  • The quality of the print and binding of my Munshiram Manoharlal reprint of Hobson-Jobson 1st ed. 1902; my printed one 2000; ISBN 81-215-0109-1 leaves nothing to be desired.

    languagehat.com: DIVAN. 2005

  • The book Hobson-Jobson, a thousand page glossary of XIXc Anglo-Indian, can be found at bookfinder.com for as little as $4.

    languagehat.com: DICK & GARLICK. 2005

  • Another European form, older than divan, and app. directly from Arabic, is It. dovana, doana, now dogana, F. douane in 15th c. douwaine, custom-house: see DOUANE.For a more discursive collection of definitions, with 19th-century stabs at etymology, see the Hobson-Jobson entry.

    languagehat.com: DIVAN. 2005

  • Just re-notifying people that the 1000-page Hobson-Jobson can be found at bookfinder.com for about $10 including shipping.

    languagehat.com: DIVAN. 2005

  • I am also trying to enocurage the use of the Saanich language among some friends involved with restoration of a park/village site Coastal Salish language near Victoria, British Columbia with a Hobson-Jobson of a few words.

    languagehat.com: NABOB/NAWAB. 2004

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