Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In tiger-shooting, a high platform or some device to protect and conceal the hunter while he is watching for the tiger. The machan is usually built in a tree and is concealed by the branches.

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

  • noun A kind of safety platform in a tree used when hunting big animals such as tigers and leopards; found most commonly in Indian jungles.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • We had a "machan" (platform) in a tree made, and at three o'clock in the afternoon I climbed up with my native shikari or hunter and watched and waited until dark.

    Adventures in Many Lands Various

  • Not too long ago, in a wildlife park near the scenic town of Albany, New Hampshire, the police pulled out a 45-year-old man from the septic tank under a public toilet in a park, his chosen machan for peering at women's backsides.

    Archive 2005-07-01 ps 2005

  • Not too long ago, in a wildlife park near the scenic town of Albany, New Hampshire, the police pulled out a 45-year-old man from the septic tank under a public toilet in a park, his chosen machan for peering at women's backsides.

    Pervert's Progress ps 2005

  • I climbed back into the machan, to watch the development of events.

    Adventures in Many Lands Various

  • After dinner, at dusk, as Mr Jukes was strolling round the house smoking a cigar, a man with a long spear came up to him, and began to turn him back with an earnest speech, of which the only word he understood was _machan_; but it was an important one, and the point of the whole oration, for it is the Javanese for tiger.

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. Various

  • After hours of weary, cramped waiting in the machan the beautiful creature had slipped noiselessly through the undergrowth and emerged into the clearing.

    The Sheik

  • If keen enough, one could sit all night on a machan in a tree near a recent "kill," on the chance of

    Ranching, Sport and Travel Thomas Carson

  • The hours dragged along slowly; Shafto, doubled up in a cramped position on a _machan_, felt painfully stiff and was obliged to deny himself the comfort of a cigarette.

    The Road to Mandalay A Tale of Burma 1884

  • This was an extraordinary _thakin_, who, at the very climax of the tiger hour, climbed out of the _machan_ and liberated the bait!

    The Road to Mandalay A Tale of Burma 1884

  • Boa machan the point is that whatever ... good luck to petes .. the side looks g ...

    Kottu kottu 2010

Comments

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  • A tree-stand from which to ambush a tiger. Unless Tiger got there first and is waiting in the tree.

    February 6, 2013

  • Appears semantically related to Javanese macan, tiger. Javanese has a lot of Sanskrit borrowings.

    February 6, 2013

  • Nice, bilby. Thanks!

    February 6, 2013