Coolie Definition
ko͝olē
noun
In India, China, etc., an unskilled native laborer.
Webster's New World
Any person doing hard or menial work for little pay.
Webster's New World
(offensive, slang, Trinidad, West Indies, Guyana and parts of Africa) A person of Indian descent.
Wiktionary
Other Word Forms of Coolie
Noun
Singular:
cooliePlural:
cooliesOrigin of Coolie
-
From Hindustani क़ुली / قلی (qulī, “hired laborer, slave”), from Turkish köle. Other forms occur in Bengali kuli and Tamil kuli, "daily hire." The Mandarin word 苦力 (kǔlì), meaning "to exert one's abilities; heavy labour work" in Classical Chinese, may have been influenced by cognates of the above Hindi word in other languages and may have further influenced English.
From Wiktionary
Hindi qulī laborer perhaps ultimately from Kulī a tribe in Gujarat
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
Find Similar Words
Find similar words to coolie using the buttons below.