Chapter CHEENAR to CHEROOT of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

following passage, refers to this animal :—

Falstaff : “He’s no swaggerer, Hostess ; a tame cheater i’ faith ; you may stroke him gently as a puppy greyhound ; he’ll not swagger.”—2nd Part King Henry IV. ii. 4.

Compare this with the passage just quoted from the Saturday Review ! And the interpretation would rather derive confirmation from a parallel passage from Beaumont & Fletcher :

“.…if you give any credit to the juggling rascal, you are worse than simple widgeons, and will be drawn into the net by this decoy-duck, this tame cheater.”—The Fair Maid of the Inn, iv. 2.

But we have not been able to trace any possible source from which Shakspere could have derived the name of the animal at all, to say nothing of the familiar use of it. [The N.E.D. gives no support to the suggestion.]

CHELING, CHELI, s. The word is applied by some Portuguese writers to the traders of Indian origin who were settled at Malacca. It is not found in the Malay dictionaries, and it is just possible that it originated in some confusion of Quelin (see KLING) and Chuli (see CHOOLIA), or rather of Quelin and Chetin (see CHETTY).

1567.—“From the cohabitation of the Chelins of Malaqua with the Christians in the same street (even although in divers houses) spring great offences against God our Lord.”—Decrees of the Sacred Council of Goa, in Archiv. Port. Orient., Dec. 23.

1613.—“E depois daquelle porto aberto e franqueado aportarão mercadores de Choromandel ; mormente aquelles chelis com roupas.…”—Godinho de Eredia, 4v.

” “This settlement is divided into two parishes, S. Thome and S. Estevão, and that part of S. Thome called Campon Chelim extends from the shore of the Jaos Bazar to the N.W. and terminates at the Stone Bastion ; in this part dwell the Chelis of Choromandel.”—Godinho de Eredia, 5v. See also f. 22, [and under CAMPOO].

CHELINGO, s. Arab. shalandi, [whence Malayal. chalanti, Tam. shalangu ;] “djalanga, qui va sur l’eau ; chalangue, barque, bateau dont les planches sont clouées” (Dict. Tam. Franc., Pondichéry, 1855). This seems an unusual word, and is perhaps connected through the Arabic with the medieval vessel chelandia, chelandria, chelindras, chelande, &c., used in carrying troops and horses. [But in its present form the word is S. Indian.]

1726.—“…as already a Chialeng (a sort of small native row-boat, which is used for discharging and loading cargo).…”— Valentijn, V. Chor. 20.

1746.—
“Chillinga hire.…0 22 0”
Account charges at Fort St. David, Decr. 31, MS. in India Office.

1761.—“It appears there is no more than one frigate that has escaped ; therefore don’t lose an instant to send us chelingoes upon chelingoes loaded with rice.…”—Lally to Raymond at Pulicat. In Comp. H. of the War in India (Tract), 1761, p. 85.

„ “No more than one frigate has escaped ; lose not an instant in sending chelingoes upon chelingoes loaded with rice.”—Carraccioli’s Life of Clive, i. 58.

CHEROOT, s. A cigar ; but the term has been appropriated specially to cigars truncated at both ends, as the Indian and Manilla cigars always were in former days. The word is Tam. shuruttu, [Mal. churuttu,] ‘a roll (of tobacco).’ In the South cheroots are chiefly made at Trichinopoly and in the Godavery Delta, the produce being known respectively as Trichies and Lunkas. The earliest occurrence of the word that we know is in Father Beschi’s Tamil story of Parmartta Guru (c. 1725). On p. 1 one of the characters is described as carrying a firebrand to light his pugaiyailai shshuruttu, ‘roll (cheroot) of tobacco.’ [The N.E.D. quotes cheroota in 1669.] Grose (1750–60), speaking of Bombay, whilst describing the cheroot does not use that word, but another which is, as far as we know, entirely obsolete in British India, viz. Buncus (q.v.).

1759.—In the expenses of the Nabob’s entertainment at Calcutta in this year we find :

“60 Ibs. of Masulipatam cheroots, Rs. 500.”—InLong, 194.

1781.—“…am tormented every day by a parcel of gentlemen coming to the end of my berth to talk politics and smoke cheroots —advise them rather to think of mending the holes in their old shirts, like me.”—
Hon. J. Lindsay (in Lires of the Lindsays), iii. 297.

„ “Our evening amusements instead of your stupid Harmonics, was playing Cards and Backgammon, chewing Beetle and smoking Cherutes.”—Old Country Captain, in India Gazette, Feby. 24.

1782.—“Le tabac y réussit très bien ; les chiroutes de Manille sont renommées dans toute l’Inde par leur goût agréable ; aussi les Dames dans ce pays fument-elles toute la journée.”—Sonnerat, Voyage, iii. 43.

1792.—“At that time (c. 1757) I have seen the officers mount guard many’s the time and oft…neither did they at that time carry your fusees, but had a long Pole with an iron head to it.…With this in one Hand and a Chiroot in the other you saw them saluting away at the Main Guard.”— Madras Courier, April 3.

1810.—“The lowest classes of Europeans, as also of the natives…frequently smoke cheroots, exactly corresponding