1783.—"Tannaserim...."—Forrest, V. to Mergui, 4.
TERAI, TERYE, s. Hind. tarāī, 'moist (land)' from tar, 'moist' or 'green.' [Others, however, connect it with tara, tala, 'beneath (the Himālaya).'] The term is specially applied to a belt of marshy and jungly land which runs along the foot of the Himālaya north of the Ganges, being that zone in which the moisture which has sunk into the talus of porous material exudes. A tract on the south side of the Ganges, now part of Bhāgalpūr, was also formerly known as the [Jungle-terry] (q.v.).
1793.—"Helloura, though standing very little below the level of Cheeria Ghat's top is nevertheless comprehended in the Turry or Turryani of Nepaul ... Turryani properly signifies low marshy lands, and is sometimes applied to the flats lying below the hills in the interior of Nepaul, as well as the low tract bordering immediately on the Company's northern frontier."—Kirkpatrick's Nepaul (1811), p. 40.
1824.—"Mr. Boulderson said he was sorry to learn from the raja that he did not consider the unhealthy season of the Terrai yet over ... I asked Mr. B. if it were true that the monkeys forsook these woods during the unwholesome months. He answered that not the monkeys only, but everything which had the breath of life instinctively deserts them from the beginning of April to October. The tigers go up to the hills, the antelopes and wild hogs make incursions into the cultivated plain ... and not so much as a bird can be heard or seen in the frightful solitude."—Heber, ed. 1844, 250-251.
[The word is used as an adj. to describe a severe form of malarial fever, and also a sort of double felt hat, worn when the sun is not so powerful as to require the use of a [sola] [topee].
[1879.—"Remittent has been called Jungle Fever, Terai Fever, Bengal Fever, &c., from the locality in which it originated...."—Moore, Family Med. for India, 211.
[1880.—"A Terai hat is sufficient for a Collector."—Ali Baba, 85.]
THAKOOR, s. Hind. ṭhākur, from Skt. ṭhakkura, 'an idol, a deity.' Used as a term of respect, Lord, Master, &c., but with a variety of specific applications, of which the most familiar is as the style of Rājpūt nobles. It is also in some parts the honorific designation of a barber, after the odd fashion which styles a tailor khalīfa (see [CALEEFA]); a bihishtī, jama'-dār (see [JEMADAR]); a sweeper, [mehtar]. And in Bengal it is the name of a Brahman family, which its members have Anglicised as Tagore, of whom several have been men of character and note, the best known being Dwārkanāth Tagore, "a man of liberal opinions and enterprising character" (Wilson), who died in London in 1840.
[c. 1610.—"The nobles in blood (in the Maldives) add to their name Tacourou."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 217.
[1798.—"The Thacur (so Rajput chieftains are called) was naked from the waist upwards, except the sacrificial thread or scarf on his shoulders and a turban on his head."—L. of Colebrooke, 462.