[1883.—"Just where it enters the town is a large stone dam called Fischer's Anaikat."—Lefanu, Man. of Salem, ii. 32.]
ANILE, NEEL, s. An old name for indigo, borrowed from the Port. anil. They got it from the Ar. al-nīl, pron. an-nīl; nīl again being the common name of indigo in India, from the Skt. nīla, 'blue.' The vernacular (in this instance Bengali) word appears in the title of a native satirical drama Nīl-Darpan, 'The Mirror of Indigo (planting),' famous in Calcutta in 1861, in connection with a cause célèbre, and with a sentence which discredited the now extinct Supreme Court of Calcutta in a manner unknown since the days of Impey.
"Neel-walla" is a phrase for an Indigo-planter [and his Factory is "Neel-kothee">[.
1501.—Amerigo Vespucci, in his letter from the Id. of Cape Verde to Lorenzo di Piero Francesco de' Medici, reporting his meeting with the Portuguese Fleet from India, mentions among other things brought "anib and tuzia," the former a manifest transcriber's error for anil.—In Baldelli Boni, 'Il Milione,' p. lvii.
1516.—In Barbosa's price list of Malabar we have:
"Anil nadador (i.e. floating; see Garcia below) very good,
per farazola ... fanams 30.
Anil loaded, with much sand,
per farazola ... fanams 18 to 20."
In Lisbon Collection, ii. 393.