1900.—"The Puttee leggings are excellent for peace and war, on foot or on horseback."—Times, Dec. 24.
b. In the N.W.P. "an original share in a joint or coparcenary village or estate comprising many villages; it is sometimes defined as the smaller subdivision of a mahal or estate" (Wilson). Hence Putteedaree, paṭṭidārī used for a tenure of this kind.
1852.—"Their names were forthwith scratched off the collector's books, and those of their eldest sons were entered, who became forthwith, in village and cutcherry parlance, [lumberdars] of the shares of their fathers, or in other words, of puttee Shere Singh and puttee Baz Singh."—Raikes, Notes on the N.W.P. 94.
c. In S. India, soldiers' pay.
1810.—"... hence in ordinary acceptation, the pay itself was called puttee, a Canarese word which properly signifies a written statement of any kind."—Wilks, Hist. Sketches, Madras reprint, i. 415.]
PUTTYWALLA, s. Hind. paṭṭā-wālā, paṭṭī-wālā (see PUTTEE), 'one with a belt.' This is the usual Bombay term for a messenger or orderly attached to an office, and bearing a belt and brass badge, called in Bengal [chuprassy] or [peon] (qq.v.), in Madras usually by the latter name.
1878.—"Here and there a belted Government servant, called a Puttiwālā, or Paṭṭawālā, because distinguished by a belt...."—Monier Williams, Modern India, 34.
PUTWA, s. Hind. patwā. The Hibiscus sabdariffa, L., from the succulent acid flowers of which very fair jelly is made in Anglo-Indian households. [It is also known as the Rozelle or Red Sorrel (Watt, Econ. Dict. iv. 243). Riddell (Domest. Econ. 337) calls it "Oseille or [Roselle] jam and jelly.">[
PYE, s. A familiar designation among British soldiers and young officers for a [Pariah-dog] (q.v.); a contraction, no doubt, of the former word.
[1892.—"We English call him a pariah, but this word, belonging to a low, yet by no means degraded class of people in Madras, is never heard on native lips as applied to a dog, any more than our other word 'pie.'"—L. Kipling, Beast and Man, 266.]