coolie
English · Français
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
coolie
- /ˈkuːli/
Rhymes with -uːli
Where it comes from
Borrowed from Hindustani (Hindi क़ुली (qulī) / Urdu قلی (qulī, “hired laborer”)), from
Chagatai قلی (quli, “servant, slave”), ultimately from Proto-Turkic *kul. Another theory says that it is named after Gujarati કોળી (koḷī), a Gujarati tribe or caste. Other forms occur in Bengali কুলি (kuli) and Tamil கூலி (kūli, “daily hire”). Possibly also influenced by Hindustani (कोली (kolī) / کولی (kolī, “weaver; low-class”)), or Persian کول (kūl, “shoulder [upon which goods are hauled]”). In Kurdish Koile (کۆیلە) and Quli (قولى): Slave, Servant. Kawli (Keweli): Low-Class, Gypsy.
Mandarin 苦力 (kǔlì, “hard labor”) may also have been influenced by cognates of the above Hindi word in other languages and may have further influenced English.
noun coolies · coolee · cooly · kuli · quli · koelie
- An unskilled Asian worker, usually of Chinese or Indian descent; a labourer; a porter. Coolies were frequently transported to other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries as indentured labourers. One day when the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid had just arrived in the Cemetery, they saw some coolies breaking ground.
- An Indian or a person of Indian descent. Well, he and his troops had shown the koefietjies-the little coolies-how quickly and how easily Afrikaner explosive shells could knock it down.
Translations
Talk about this word "coolie." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/coolie. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. coolie. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/coolie "coolie." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/coolie.Cite this
@misc{coolie_2026,
title = {coolie},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/coolie},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
