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Origin and history of India

India

"the Indian subcontinent, central Asia south of the Himalayas," formerly sometimes used generally for "Asia;" Old English India, Indea, from Latin India, from Greek India "region of the Indus River," later used of the region beyond it, from Indos "Indus River," also "an Indian," from Old Persian Hindu, the name for the province of Sind, from Sanskrit sindhu "river."

The more common Middle English form was Ynde or Inde, from Old French (hence Indies). The form India began to prevail again in English from 16c., perhaps under Spanish or Portuguese influence. From 1947 in reference to the Republic of India.

Entries linking to India

Indies

"India and adjacent regions and islands," 1550s, plural of Indie, Indy, from Middle English Ynde (early 13c.), the usual word in Middle English for "India," from the Old French form of Latin India (see India). Commonly applied to Asia and the East generally; later in a time of geographical confusion, it was applied to the Caribbean basin, which was distinguished from Asia proper by being called the West Indies.

Indian(adj., n.)

c. 1300 (noun and adjective), "inhabit of India or South Asia; pertaining to India," from Late Latin indianus, from India (see India).

Applied in English to the aboriginal native inhabitants of the Americas from at least 1553 as a noun (1610s as an adjective), reflecting Spanish and Portuguese use, on the mistaken notion that America was the eastern end of Asia. The English word occasionally was used 18c.-19c. of inhabitants of the Philippines and indigenous peoples of Australia and New Zealand.

The Old English adjective was Indisc, and Indish (adj.) was common in 16c.

Red Indian, to distinguish the native Americans from inhabitants of India, is attested by 1831 in British English (Carlyle) but was not commonly used in North America.

Hugh Rawson ("Wicked Words") writes that "Indian is unusual among ethnic terms for not having much pejorative value until comparatively recently." A few phrases, most of them U.S., impugn honesty or intelligence, such as Indian gift:

An Indian gift is a proverbial expression, signifying a present for which an equivalent return is expected. [Thomas Hutchinson, "History of Massachusetts Bay," 1765]

Hence Indian giver "one who gives a gift and then asks for it back" (1848). Also compare Indian summer.

Indian corn is from 1620s; to walk Indian file is from 1758. Indian club is from 1824 as a weapon, 1825 as exercise equipment (clubs were noted in Lewis & Clark, etc., as characteristic weapons of native warriors in the American West). Indian country, "land to which the Indian title has not been extinguished," is attested by 1747. Indian-head (adj.) in reference to small U.S. copper pennies with a portrait of Liberty in a native-style head-dress, is from 1862.

Indian elephant (c. 1600) is from the Asian Indian.