RAMASAMMY, s. This corruption of Rāmaswāmi ('Lord Rāma'), a common Hindū proper name in the South, is there used colloquially in two ways:
(a). As a generic name for Hindūs, like 'Tommy Atkins' for a British soldier. Especially applied to Indian coolies in Ceylon, &c.
(b). For a twisted roving of cotton in a tube (often of wrought silver) used to furnish light for a cigar (see [FULEETA]). Madras use:
a.—
[1843.—"I have seen him almost swallow it, by Jove, like Ramo Samee, the Indian juggler."—Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. i.]
1880.—"... if you want a clerk to do your work or a servant to attend on you, ... you would take on a saponaceous Bengali Baboo, or a servile abject Madrasi Ramasammy.... A Madrasi, even if wrongly abused, would simply call you his father, and his mother, and his aunt, defender of the poor, and epitome of wisdom, and would take his change out of you in the bazaar accounts."—Cornhill Mag., Nov., pp. 582-3.
RAMBOTANG, s. Malay rambūtan (Filet, No. 6750, p. 256). The name of a fruit (Nephelium lappaceum, L.), common in the Straits, having a thin luscious pulp, closely adhering to a hard stone, and covered externally with bristles like those of the external envelope of a chestnut. From rambūt, 'hair.'
1613.—"And other native fruits, such as bachoes (perhaps bachang, the Mangifera foetida?) rambotans, rambes,[[229]] buasducos,[[229]] and pomegranates, and innumerable others...."—Godinho de Eredia, 16.
1726.—"... the ramboetan-tree (the fruit of which the Portuguese call froeta dos caffaros or Caffer's fruit)."—Valentijn (v.) Sumatra, 3.
1727.—"The Rambostan is a Fruit about the Bigness of a Walnut, with a tough Skin, beset with Capillaments; within the Skin is a very savoury Pulp."—A. Hamilton, ii. 81; [ed. 1744, ii. 80].