lakh Anglo-Indian.
(læk)
Forms: 7 laches, le(c)k, leake, lacque, laquesaa (? from Skr.), 7–9 lak, lack, 9 lac.
[ad. Hindustani lākh:—Skr. laksha masc. and neut., lakshā fem.]
One hundred thousand: a. of things in general; occas. used for an indefinite number; b. spec. of coins, esp. in a lac of rupees.
| a. 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage v. vi. (1614) 478 Euery Laches containeth an hundred thousand yeares. 1653 H. Cogan tr. Pinto's Trav. lvii. 225 There was slain..sixteen Laquesaas of men, each of which an hundred thousand. 1698 J. Fryer E. India & P. 104 With Lamps to the Number of two or three Lacques, which is so many Hundred thousand on our Account. 1800 Asiat. Ann. Reg. 62/2 The troops of that country [China] were upwards of three lacks of horsemen. 1804 Mrq. Wellesley in Owen Desp. (1877) 454 Calamities would fall on lacs of human beings. 1820 T. Maurice Hist. Hindostan I. i. iv. 126 Four Yugs, or forty-three lacks and twenty thousand years. 1881 Lubbock in Nature No. 618. 407 The Laccadives..meaning literally the ‘lac of islands’. 1964 E. Huxley Back Street New Worlds x. 100 Plenty of Pakistanis are here already—the High Commissioner's estimate is one lakh, or 100,000. 1969 National Herald (New Delhi) 29 July 6/5 The labour acts which relate to factories, mines, plantation, transport, shops and establishments, wages, safety and welfare, industrial relations and protection of children are expected to benefit lakhs of workers and wage-earners in the state. 1969 Hindu (Madras) 3 Aug. 6/4 The area worst hit by the recent floods in the Brahmaputra Valley is the Sibsagar district where about two lakhs of people have been affected, with thousands rendered homeless. |
| b. 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage v. xvii. (1614) 544 Euery Crou is a hundred Leckes, and euery Lecke a hundred thousand thousand [sic] Rupias. 1615 Coryat Lett. fr. India in Crudities (1776) III. L 6, The whole Present was worth ten of their Leakes, as they call them; a Leak being ten thousand pound sterling. 1687 A. Lovell tr. Thevenot's Trav. iii. i. ix. 18 Great sums of money are reckoned by Leks, Crouls. 1692 in J. T. Wheeler Madras in Old. Time (1861) I. 262 A lak of Pagodas. 1773 Gentl. Mag. XLIII. 145 Whilst Patriots of presented lacks complain, And Courtiers brib'ry to excess arraign. 1802 Wolcot (P. Pindar) Great Cry & Little Wool Wks. 1812 V. 175 The lacks are not easily got Nor honestly made in a hurry. 1859 Thackeray Virgin. xliii, Making rather too free with jaghires, lakhs, gold mohurs. 1871 S. Mateer Travancore 72 The annual revenue of the Travancore State amounts..to about forty lacs of rupees. 1955 Times 3 Aug. 2/6 Detailed prospecting, which has so far cost 19·80 lakhs of rupees, led to the location of iron ore in Kalabagh and its suburbs in the Punjab. 1971 Weekend (Ceylon) 12 Sept. 3/2 The project would cost four lakhs of rupees. 1972 Times of India 28 Nov. 5/3 The parcel actually contained 900 Japanese-made wrist watches worth Rs. 2 lakhs. 1975 Bangladesh Times 18 July 1/3 The Finance Minister said that the Government had already increased the ceiling of private investment for setting up industries from Tk 25 lakh to Taka three crore. |