KHUDD, KUDD, s. This is a term chiefly employed in the Himālaya, khadd, meaning a precipitous hill-side, also a deep valley. It is not in the dictionaries, but is probably allied to the Hind. khāt, 'a pit,' Dakh.—Hind. khaḍḍā. [Platts gives Hind. khaḍ. This is from Skt. khaṇḍa, 'a gap, a chasm,' while khāt comes from Skt. khāta, 'an excavation.'] The word is in constant Anglo-Indian colloquial use at Simla and other Himālayan stations.
1837.—"The steeps about Mussoori are so very perpendicular in many places, that a person of the strongest nerve would scarcely be able to look over the edge of the narrow footpath into the Khud, without a shudder."—Bacon, First Impressions, ii. 146.
1838.—"On my arrival I found one of the ponies at the estate had been killed by a fall over the precipice, when bringing up water from the khud."—Wanderings of a Pilgrim, ii. 240.
1866.—"When the men of the 43d Regt. refused to carry the guns any longer, the [Eurasian] gunners, about 20 in number, accompanying them, made an attempt to bring them on, but were unequal to doing so, and under the direction of this officer (Capt. Cockburn, R.A.) threw them down a Khud, as the ravines in the Himalaya are called...."—Bhotan and the H. of the Dooar War, by Surgeon Rennie, M.D. p. 199.
1879.—"The commander-in-chief ... is perhaps alive now because his horse so judiciously chose the spot on which suddenly to swerve round that its hind hoofs were only half over the chud" (sic).—Times Letter, from Simla, Aug. 15.
KHURREEF, s. Ar. kharīf, 'autumn'; and in India the crop, or harvest of the crop, which is sown at the beginning of the rainy season (April and May) and gathered in after it, including rice, the tall millets, maize, cotton, rape, sesamum, &c. The obverse crop is [rubbee] (q.v.).
[1809.—"Three weeks have not elapsed since the Kureef crop, which consists of Bajru (see [BAJRA]), Jooar (see [JOWAUR]), several smaller kinds of grain, and cotton, was cleared from off the fields, and the same ground is already ploughed ... and sown for the great [Rubbee] crop of wheat, barley and chunu (see [GRAM])."—Broughton, Letters from a Mahratta Camp, ed. 1892, p. 215.]
KHUTPUT, s. This is a native slang term in Western India for a prevalent system of intrigue and corruption. The general meaning of khaṭpaṭ in Hind. and Mahr. is rather 'wrangling' and 'worry,' but it is in the former sense that the word became famous (1850-54) in consequence of Sir James Outram's struggles with the rascality, during his tenure of the Residency of Baroda.
[1881.—"Khutput, or court intrigue, rules more or less in every native State, to an extent incredible among the more civilised nations of Europe."—Frazer, Records of Sport, 204.]
KHUTTRY, KHETTRY, CUTTRY, s. Hind. Khattrī, Khatrī, Skt. Kshatriya. The second, or military caste, in the theoretical or fourfold division of the Hindus. [But the word is more commonly applied to a mercantile caste, which has its origin in the Punjab, but is found in considerable numbers in other parts of India. Whether they are really of Kshatriya descent is a matter on which there is much difference of opinion. See Crooke, Tribes and Castes of N.W.P., iii. 264 seqq.] The Χατριαῖοι whom Ptolemy locates apparently towards Rājputānā are probably Kshatriyas.