"Ce mot (véranda) n'est lui-même qu'une transcription inexacte du Persan beramada, perche, terrasse, balcon."—C. Defréméry, in Revue Critique, 1869, 1st Sem. p. 64.
Plausible as this is, it may be rejected. Is it not, however, possible that barāmada, the literal meaning of which is 'coming forward, projecting,' may be a Persian 'striving after meaning,' in explanation of the foreign word which they may have borrowed?
Williams, again, in his Skt. Dict. (1872) gives 'varaṇḍa ... a veranda, a portico....' Moreover Beames in his Comparative Grammar of Modern Aryan Languages, gives Sansk. baraṇḍa, 'portico,' Bengali bārāṇḍā, Hind. varaṇḍā, adding: "Most of our wise-acre literateurs (qu. littérateurs?) in Hindustan now-a-days consider this word to be derived from Pers. barāmadah, and write it accordingly. It is, however, good Sanskrit" (i. 153). Fortunately we have in Bishop Caldwell a proof that comparative grammar does not preclude good manners. Mr. Beames was evidently in entire ignorance of the facts which render the origin of the Anglo-Indian word so curiously ambiguous; but we shall not call him the "wise-acre grammarian." Varaṇḍa, with the meaning in question, does not, it may be observed, belong to the older Sanskrit, but is only found in comparatively modern works.[[281]]
Littré also gives as follows (1874): "Etym. Verandah, mot rapporté de l'Inde par les Anglais, est la simple dégénérescence, dans les langues modernes de l'Inde, du Sansc. veranda, colonnade, de var, couvrir."
That the word as used in England and in France was brought by the English from India need not be doubted. But either in the same sense, or in one closely analogous, it appears to have existed, quite independently, in Portuguese and Spanish; and the manner in which it occurs without explanation in the very earliest narrative of the adventure of the Portuguese in India, as quoted below, seems almost to preclude the possibility of their having learned it in that country for the first time; whilst its occurrence in P. de Alcala can leave no doubt on the subject. [Prof. Skeat says: "If of native Span. origin, it may be Span. vara a rod, rail. Cf. L. uarus, crooked" (Concise Dict. s.v.).]
1498.—"E vêo ter comnosco onde estavamos lançados, em huma varanda onde estava hum grande castiçall d'arame que nos alumeava."—Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da Gama, 2nd ed., 1861, p. 62, i.e. "... and came to join us where we had been put in a varanda, where there was a great candlestick of brass that gave us light...." And Correa, speaking of the same historical passage, though writing at a later date, says: "When the Captain-Major arrived, he was conducted through many courts and verandas (muitos pateos e varandas) to a dwelling opposite that in which the king was...."—Correa, by Stanley, 193, compared with original Lendas, I. i. 98.
1505.—In Pedro de Alcala's Spanish-Arabic Vocabulary we have:
"Varandas—Târbuç.
Varandas assi çârgaba, çârgab."
Interpreting these Arabic words, with the assistance of Prof. Robertson Smith, we find that târbuç is, according to Dozy (Suppt. I. 430), darbūz, itself taken from darābazīn (τραπέζιον), 'a stair-railing, fireguard, balcony, &c.'; whilst çârgab stands for sarjab, a variant (Abul W., p. 735, i.) of the commoner sharjab, 'a lattice, or anything latticed,' such as a window,—'a balcony, a balustrade.'