nautch, n.
(nɔːtʃ)
Also nach, nách, nâch, natch.
[a. Urdū (Hindī) nāch, Prakrit nachcha, Skr. nṛitya, dancing, acting, f. nṛit- to dance.]
1. An East Indian exhibition of dancing, performed by professional dancing-girls.
| α 1809 Broughton Lett. Mahratta Camp xvi. (1892) 142 You Europeans are apt to picture to yourselves a Nach as a most attractive spectacle. 1849 E. B. Eastwick Dry Leaves 174, I pass over the usual festivities of a native marriage, and the Nách given me by Fazal. |
| β c 1813 Mrs. Sherwood Ayah & Lady iv. 24, I thought of nothing but..going out to great dinners and nautches. 1862 Beveridge Hist. India II. vi. viii. 781 Holkar was said to have had a grand nautch. 1864 Trevelyan Compet. Wallah 126, I could not have believed in the existence of an entertainment so extravagantly dull as a Nautch. |
b. A nautch girl.
| 1872 Browning Fifine xxxi, The Pariah of the North, the European Nautch! |
2. attrib. and
Comb., as
nautch dance,
nautch dancer,
nautch girl,
nautch woman.
| 1858 W. H. Russell Diary in India II. 275, I don't think the *nautch dance calculated to improve their minds. |
| 1879 E. Arnold Lt. Asia vi. iv, A band of tinselled girls, the *nautch dancers Of Indra's temple. |
| 1809 Broughton Lett. Mahratta Camp xi. (1892) 93 Two sets of *Nach girls. 1879 E. Arnold Lt. Asia i. iv, The nautch girls in their spangled skirts and bells. |
| 1825 Heber Journey (1828) II. 136 The *Nâch women were, as usual, ugly. |
Hence
nautch v. intr., to dance at or as at a nautch. Also
ˈnautching vbl. n.| 1851 R. F. Burton Goa 125 When mere children they are initiated in the mysteries of nautching. 1859 ― Centr. Afr. in Jrnl. Geog. Soc. XXIX. 266 They will fly to their drums, rush about, jump, and nautch, as if hung on wires. |