CARRAWAY, s. This word for the seed of Carum carui, L., is (probably through Sp. alcaravea) from the Arabic karawiyā. It is curious that the English form is thus closer to the Arabic than either the Spanish, or the French and Italian carvi, which last has passed into Scotch as carvy. But the Arabic itself is a corruption [not immediately, N.E.D.] of Lat. careum, or Gr. κάρον (Dozy).
CARTMEEL, s. This is, at least in the Punjab, the ordinary form that 'mail-cart' takes among the natives. Such inversions are not uncommon. Thus Sir David Ochterlony was always called by the Sepoys Loni-okhtar. In our memory an officer named Holroyd was always called by the Sepoys Roydāl, [and Brownlow, Lobrūn. By another curious corruption Mackintosh becomes Makkhanī-tosh, 'buttered toast'!]
CARTOOCE, s. A cartridge; kārtūs, Sepoy H.; [comp. [TOSTDAUN]].
CARYOTA, s. This is the botanical name (Caryota urens, L.) of a magnificent palm growing in the moister forest regions, as in the Western Ghauts and in Eastern Bengal, in Ceylon, and in Burma. A conspicuous character is presented by its enormous bipinnate leaves, somewhat resembling colossal bracken-fronds, 15 to 25 feet long, 10 to 12 in width; also by the huge pendent clusters of its inflorescence and seeds, the latter like masses of rosaries 10 feet long and upwards. It affords much [Toddy] (q.v.) made into spirit and sugar, and is the tree chiefly affording these products in Ceylon, where it is called Kitul. It also affords a kind of sago, and a woolly substance found at the foot of the leaf-stalks is sometimes used for caulking, and forms a good tinder. The sp. name urens is derived from the acrid, burning taste of the fruit. It is called, according to Brandis, the Mhār-palm in Western India. We know of no Hindustani or familiar Anglo-Indian name. [Watt, (Econ. Dict. ii. 206) says that it is known in Bombay as the Hill or Sago palm. It has penetrated in Upper India as far as Chunār.] The name Caryota seems taken from Pliny, but his application is to a kind of date-palm; his statement that it afforded the best wine of the East probably suggested the transfer.
c. A.D. 70.—"Ab his caryotae maxume celebrantur, et cibo quidem et suco uberrimae, ex quibus praecipua vina orienti, iniqua capiti, unde pomo nomen."—Pliny, xiii. § 9.
1681.—"The next tree is the Kettule. It groweth straight, but not so tall or big as a Coker-Nut-Tree; the inside nothing but a white pith, as the former. It yieldeth a sort of Liquor ... very sweet and pleasing to the Pallate.... The which Liquor they boyl and make a kind of brown sugar called Jaggory [see [JAGGERY]], &c."—Knox, p. 15.
1777.—"The Caryota urens, called the Saguer tree, grew between Salatiga and Kopping, and was said to be the real tree from which sago is made."—Thunberg, E. T. iv. 149. A mistake, however.
1861.—See quotation under [PEEPUL].
CASH, s. A name applied by Europeans to sundry coins of low value in various parts of the Indies. The word in its original form is of extreme antiquity, "Skt. karsha ... a weight of silver or gold equal to 1⁄400 of a Tulā" (Williams, Skt. Dict.; and see also a Note on the Kārsha, or rather kārshāpaṇa, as a copper coin of great antiquity, in E. Thomas's Pathân Kings of Delhi, 361-362). From the Tam. form kāsu, or perhaps from some Konkani form which we have not traced, the Portuguese seem to have made caixa, whence the English cash. In Singalese also kāsi is used for 'coin' in general. The English term was appropriated in the monetary system which prevailed in S. India up to 1818; thus there was a copper coin for use in Madras struck in England in 1803, which bears on the reverse, "XX Cash." A figure of this coin is given in Ruding. Under this system 80 cash = 1 fanam, 42 fanams = 1 star pagoda. But from an early date the Portuguese had applied caixa to the small money of foreign systems, such as those of the Malay Islands, and especially to that of the Chinese. In China the word cash is used, by Europeans and their hangers-on, as the synonym of the Chinese le and tsien, which are those coins made of an alloy of copper and lead with a square hole in the middle, which in former days ran 1000 to the liang or [tael] (q.v.), and which are strung in certain numbers on cords. [This type of money, as was recently pointed out by Lord Avebury, is a survival of the primitive currency, which was in the shape of an axe.] Rouleaux of coin thus strung are represented on the surviving bank-notes of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368 onwards), and probably were also on the notes of their Mongol predecessors.
The existence of the distinct English word cash may probably have affected the form of the corruption before us. This word had a European origin from It. cassa, French caisse, 'the money-chest': this word in book-keeping having given name to the heading of account under which actual disbursements of coin were entered (see Wedgwood and N.E.D. s.v.). In Minsheu (2nd ed. 1627) the present sense of the word is not attained. He only gives "a tradesman's Cash, or Counter to keepe money in."