suttee
(sʌˈtiː, ˈsʌtiː)
Also 8–9 sati, 9 satti, shuttee.
[a. Skr. (Hindī, Urdū) satī faithful or virtuous wife, fem. of sat good, wise, honest, lit. being, pr. pple. of as to be (see be v.).]
1. A Hindu widow who immolates herself on the funeral pile with her husband's body.
| 1786 in Parl. Papers E. India Aff., Hindoo Widows (1821) 3 We were informed the suttee (for that is the name given to the person who so devotes herself) had passed, and her track was marked by the goolol and betel leaf, which she had scattered as she went along. Ibid. 4 As the suttee ascends the pile, she is furnished with a lighted taper. 1787 Sir W. Jones Let. in Ld. Teignmouth Mem. (1804) 295 My mother..became a sati, and burned herself to expiate sins. 1881 Tylor Anthropology xiv. (1904) 347 There are ‘native’ districts in India where the suttee or ‘goodwife’ is still burnt on her husband's funeral pile. 1895 B. M. Croker Village Tales (1896) 127 Her relations drove her to the faggots, for the family of a suttee are held in much esteem. 1905 Westm. Gaz. 14 Mar. 10/1 The accused Juggernath Missir, beyond saying that his mother died as ‘sati’ on the same day that his father died, refused to make any statement. |
| fig. 1849 Thackeray in Scribner's Mag. I. 687/1 You dear Suttees, you get ready and glorify in being martyrized. |
2. The immolation of a Hindu widow in this way. Phr.
to do suttee,
perform suttee.
The custom was abolished by authority in British India in 1829.
| 1813 in Parl. Papers E. India Aff., Hindoo Widows (1821) 33 To require that any express leave..be required, previously to the performance of the act of ‘suttee’. 1877 Encycl. Brit. VI. 778/2 Suttee in native states..he [sc. Lord Dalhousie] kept down with an iron hand. 1885 Times (weekly ed.) 2 Oct. 12/2 A ceremony called a ‘cold suttee’ is described in books on Hindoo customs. When the relatives had a very nice sense of honour, and a widow's proclivities outraged it, they made a feast at which she was the principal guest. She was sumptuously regaled and at the end drugged to death. |
| fig. 1833 T. Hook Love & Pride, Widow vii, Pratt..gave an account of the proceedings at one of these European suttees. 1859 Meredith R. Feverel xxxix, He had become resigned to her perpetual lamentation and living Suttee for his defunct rival. 1882 M. E. Braddon Mt. Royal I. i. 4 A widower of that kind ought to perform suttee. |
| attrib. 1823 in Parl. Papers E. India Aff., Hindoo Widows (1825) 13 Any general proposition for abolishing the suttee immolation. |
Hence
suˈtteeism, the practice of suttee.
| 1846 in Worcester (citing Ec. Rev.). 1867 Eclectic Rev. (N.S.) XIII. 94 The Sutteeism of China is by self-strangulation. 1869 Daily News 6 Oct., The miserable condition of Hindoo widows after the custom of sutteeism was done away with. |