c. 1760.—"As to the wood it is a sort called Teak, to the full as durable as oak."—Grose, i. 108.
1777.—"Experience hath long since shewn, that ships built with oak, and joined together with wooden trunnels, are by no means so well calculated to resist the extremes of heat and damp, in the tropical latitudes of Asia, as the ships which are built in India of tekewood, and bound with iron spikes and bolts."—Price's Tracts, i. 191.
1793.—"The teek forests, from whence the marine yard at Bombay is furnished with that excellent species of ship-timber, lie along the western side of the Gaut mountains ... on the north and north-east of Basseen.... I cannot close this subject without remarking the unpardonable negligence we are guilty of in delaying to build teak ships of war for the service of the Indian seas."—Rennell, Memoir, 3rd ed. 260.
[1800.—"Tayca, Tectona Robusta."—Buchanan, Mysore, i. 26.]
TEE, s. The metallic decoration, generally gilt and hung with tinkling bells, on the top of a dagoba in Indo-Chinese countries, which represents the chatras [chhattras] or umbrellas which in ancient times, as royal emblems, crowned these structures. Burm. h'ti, 'an umbrella.'
1800.—"... In particular the Tee, or umbrella, which, composed of open iron-work, crowned the spire, had been thrown down."—Symes, i. 193.
1855.—"... gleaming in its white plaster, with numerous pinnacles and tall central spire, we had seen it (Gaudapalen Temple at Pugan) from far down the Irawadi rising like a dim vision of Milan Cathedral.... It is cruciform in plan ... exhibiting a massive basement with porches, and rising above in a pyramidal gradation of terraces, crowned by a spire and htee. The latter has broken from its stays at one side, and now leans over almost horizontally...."—Yule, Mission to Ava, 1858, p. 42.
1876.—"... a feature known to Indian archaeologists as a Tee...."—Fergusson, Ind. and East. Archit. 64.
TEEK, adj. Exact, precise, punctual; also parsimonious, ṭhīk.
[1843.—"They all feel that the good old rule of right (teek), as long as a man does his duty well, can no longer be relied upon."—G. W. Johnson, Stranger in India, i. 290.]