hathi

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindi हाथी (hāthī).

Noun

hathi (plural hathis)

1. (India, rare, obsolete) An elephant.
   • 1890, Rudyard Kipling, Mandalay:

     We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak. Elephints a-pilin' teak

   • 1922, Earl Louis Mountbatten Mountbatten of Burma, The Diaries of Lord Louis Mountbatten 1920-1922:

     the Hathi is a wily animal , and will face fire and steel rather than what he suspects to be a trap

   • 1923, E. H. D. Sewell, The Log of a Sportsman, page 151:

     Here were we, jampacked on a narrow track down which the hathi was certain to come if he came at all , not a fire - iron of any sort among the lot of us, to all appearances not a vestige of an escape on either side

Alternative forms

• hatty