mancheel

English

Etymology

From Malayalam, from Sanskrit or from Classical Persian مَنْزِل (manzil), from Arabic مَنْزِل (manzil, “house; inn; stage of a journey, day's travel”).

Noun

mancheel (plural mancheels)

1. (India, chiefly historical) A covered hammock litter developed in southwest India.
   • 1830, James Welsh, Military Reminiscences, volume II, page 142:

     A Muncheel is a kind of litter, resembling a sea-cot, or hammock, hung to a long pole, with a moveable covering over the whole, to keep off the sun or rain. Six men will run with one from one end of the Malabar coast to the other, while twelve are necessary for the lightest palanquin.

   • 2002, Norman Mosley Penzer, Poison Damsels, page 231:

     The muncheel or manjeel..., also written munsheel and munchil, from the Malayālam manjīl, manjāl, mañchīl, mañchāl and Sanskrit maṇcha, is the name given to a kind of hammock-litter used on the south-west coast of India... It is shaded by a cover, which in some cases is held up by a frame of bent canes.

Alternative forms

• manjeel, muncheel, munchil, munsheel, monchil

References

• “muncheel, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• Henry Yule, A[rthur] C[oke] Burnell (1903) “muncheel”, in William Crooke, editor, Hobson-Jobson […] , London: John Murray, […].