pani-wallah India.
[f. Hindi pānī water + wallah.]
A water-carrier (see also quot. 1957).
| 1934 ‘G. Orwell’ Burmese Days xxv. 368 Ba Pe is pani-wallah in the same house at sixteen rupees a month. 1936 W. H. S. Smith Let. 2 Aug. in Young Man's Country (1977) ii. 20 My nice young pani-wallah has had to return to Rajshahi. 1957 D. G. O. Baillie Sea Affair 244 Pani⁓wallahs..are not really watermen at all, but oilmen, or greasers. 1960 Times 16 Mar. (Canberra Suppl.) p. xiv/6 Greasers are called panniwallahs, where ‘panni’ means water (once a more popular lubricant than grease). 1971 Blitz (Bombay) 6 Mar. 9/2 Householders are cursing him loudly, calling him ‘paniwala maharaj’. |