Hobson-Jobson Anglo-Ind.
(ˈhɒbsən ˈdʒɒbsən)
Also 7 Hosseen Gosseen, Hossy Gossy; 8 Hossein Jossen, Hassan Hassan, etc.
[Corruption by British soldiers in India of Arab. Yā Ḥasan! Yā Ḥusayn! = O Hasan! O Husain!]
1. Anglicized form of the repeated wailings and cries of Muslims as they beat their breasts in the Muharram procession; hence this festal ceremony. Also transf.
Hasan and Husain, grandsons of Muhammad, were killed while fighting for the faith.
| 1634 T. Herbert Trav. 167, I have seene them nine severall dayes..in the streets all together crying out Hussan, Hussan. 1698 J. Fryer New Account E. India & Persia 108 The Moors solemnize the Exequies of Hosseen Gosseen. Ibid. 357 That Liberty, which was chiefly used in their Hossy Gossy. 1773 E. Ives Voy. i. ii. 28 Their Hassan Hassan, in memory of the two sons of Ali by Fatima (Mahomet's daughter) being killed in one day fighting for the faith. 1817 T. S. Raffles Hist. Java II. 4 The ceremony of h{uacu}sen hásen..here passes by almost without notice. 1829 Oriental Sporting Mag. (1873) I. 129/2 The folks makes sich a noise..shouting Hobson Jobson, Hobson Jobson. 1861 J. T. Wheeler Madras II. xxxii. 347 The Mussulman feast called ‘Hossein Jossen’. 1935 M. E. Houtzager Unconscious Sound- & Sense-Assimilations ii. 52 Hobson-Jobson, suggestive of a proper name, is the name of a native festal excitement. |
2. a. Used as the title of a famous collection of Anglo-Indian words.
| 1886 Yule & Burnell (title) Hobson-Jobson, a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms. |
b. the law of Hobson-Jobson: a phrase sometimes used of the process of adapting a foreign word to the sound-system of the adopting language. So ˌHobson-ˈJobsonism.
| 1898 Morris Austral Eng. 287/2 The name of the shell is a corruption of this word, by the law of Hobson-Jobson. 1919 Mencken Amer. Lang. 41 Its variations show a familiar effort to bring a new and strange word into harmony with the language—an effort arising from what philologists call the law of Hobson-Jobson. 1934 S.P.E. Tract xli. 21 There are the words (‘Hobson-Jobsonisms’) where the original [sc. Indian] form has been more or less modified in the process of Anglicization. |