Coolie meaning

ko͝o'lē
In India, China, etc., an unskilled native laborer.
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An unskilled Asian laborer.
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Any person doing hard or menial work for little pay.
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(offensive, slang) An unskilled Asian worker, usually of Chinese or Indian descent; a labourer; a porter. Coolies were frequently transported to other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries as indentured labourers.
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(offensive, slang, Trinidad, West Indies, Guyana and parts of Africa) A person of Indian descent.
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Origin of coolie

  • Hindi qulī laborer perhaps ultimately from Kulī a tribe in Gujarat
    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
  • 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

Coolie Sentence Examples

  • coolie camp where also there was cholera.

  • The album also featured contributions from Coolie Ranx of the popular band The Toasters.

  • coolie hats were another popular element of Teddy Girl style.

  • Coolie importation from China had been stopped in 1871.

  • Since the middle of the, 9th century, indeed, much of it has run in the most questionable channels; the nefarious coolie traffic gradually increased in extent and in cruelty from about 1848 till it was prohibited in 1874, and much of the actual trade is more or less of the nature of smuggling.

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Words near coolie in the Dictionary