mudaliyar

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Ceylonese Mudaliyars

From Tamil [script needed] (mutaliyār) (plural of [script needed] (mutali, “chief”)), in early forms probably via Portuguese modeliar.

mudaliyar (plural mudaliyars)

(now historical) A chief or headman in Sri Lanka. [from 17th c.]
- 1969, Leonard Woolf, Journey Not Arrival Matters:
  He had been a Mudaliyar or Headman of East Giruwa Pattu […] when I was Assistant Government Agent there fifty years ago.
- 2020, Sujit Sivasundaram, Waves Across the South, William Collins, published 2021, page 228:
  Other Mudliyars said they couldn't join in the first instance but would send on ‘Thieves and rogues (black guard fellows who certainly do abound).’
(chiefly in form mudaliar) A high-status Tamil caste in India. [from 19th c.]