Chapter a. GOUR to GRAM of G by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

pubd. Florence, 1871, pp. 148, 404.

1343.—“Jalansi…sent us off is company with his son, on board at vessel called al-’Ukairi, which is like a ghorab, only more roomy. It has 60 oars, and when it engages is covered with a roof to protect the rowers from the darts and Stone-shot.”—Ibn Batuta, iv. 59.

1505.—In the Vocabulary of Pedro de Alcala, galera is interpreted in Arabic as gorâb.

1554.—In the narrative of Sidi ’Ali Kapudan, in describing an action that he fought with the Portuguese near the Persian Gulf, he says the enemy’s fleet consisted of 4 barques as big as carracks (q.v.), 3 great ghurabs, 6 Ka rawals (see CARAVEL) and 12 smaller ghurabs, or galliots (see GALLEVAT) with oars.—In J. As., ser. 1. tom. ix. 67–68.

[c. 1610.—“His royal galley called by them Ogate Gourabe (gourabe means ‘galley,’ and ogate ‘royal’).”—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 312.]

1660.—“Jani Beg might attack us from the hills, the ghrábs from the river, and the men of Sihwan from the rear, so that we should be in a critical position.”—Mohammed M’asum, in Elliot, i. 250. The word occurs in many pages of the same history.

[1679.—“My Selfe and Mr. Gapes Grob the stern most.”—In Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. clxxxiv.]

1690.—“Galera…ab Arabibus tam Asiaticis quam Africanis vocatur…Ghorâb, i.e. Corvus, quasi piceâ nigredine, rostro extenso, et velis remisque sicut alis volans galera: unde et Vlacho Graece dicitur [Greek Text] Melaina.”—Hyde, Note on Peritsol, in Synt. Dissertt. i. 97.

1673.—“Our Factors, having concerns in the cargo of the ships in this Poad, loaded two Grobs and departed.”—Fryer, 153.

1727.—“The Muskat War…obliges them (the Portuguese) to keep an Armada of five or six Ships, besides small Frigates and Grabs of War.”—A. Hamilton, i. 250; [ed. 1744, ii. 253].

1750–52.—“The ships which they make use of against their enemies are called goerabbs by the Dutch, and grabbs by the English, have 2 or 3 masts, and are built like our ships, with the same sort of rigging, only their prows are low and sharp as in gallies, that they may not only place some cannons in them, but likewise in case of emergency for a couple of oars, to push the grabb on in a calm.”—Olof Toreen, Voyage, 205.

c. 1754.—“Our E. I. Company had here (Bombay) one ship of 40 guns, one of 20, one Grab of 18 guns, and several other vessels.”—Ives, 43. Ives explains “Ketches, which they call grabs.” This shows the meaning already changed, as no galley could carry 18 guns.

c. 1760.—“When the Derby, Captain Ansell, was so scandalously taken by a few of Angria’s grabs.”—Grose, i. 81.

1763.—“The grabs have rarely more than two masts, though some have three; those of three are about 300 tons burthen; but the others are not more than 150: they are built to draw very little water, being very broad in proportion to their length, narrowing, however, from the middle to the end, where instead of bows they have a prow, projecting like that of a Mediterranean galley.”—Orme (reprint), i. 408–9.

1810.—“Here a fine English East Indiaman, there a grab, or a dow from Arabia.”—Maria Graham, 142.

„ “This Glab (sic) belongs to an Arab merchant of Muscat. The Nakhodah, an Abyssinian slave.”—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 232.

[1820.—“We had scarce set sail when there came in a ghorab (a kind of boat) the Cotwal of Surat…”—Trans. Lit. Soc. Bo. ii. 5.]

1872.—“Moored in its centre you saw some 20 or 30 ghurábs (grabs) from Maskat, Baghlahs from the Persian Gulf, Kotiyahs from Kach’h, and Pattimars or Batelas from the Konkan and Bombay.”—Burton, Sind Revisited, i. 83.

GRAM, s. This word is properly the Portuguese grão, i.e. ‘grain,’ but it has been specially appropriated to that kind of vetch (Cicer arietinum, L.) which is the most general grain-(rather pulse-) food of horses all over India, called in H. chana. It is the Ital. cece, Fr. pois chiche, Eng. chick-pea or Egypt. pea, much used in France and S. Europe. This specific application of grão is also Portuguese, as appears from Bluteau. The word gram is in some parts of India applied to other kinds of pulse, and then this application of it is recognised by qualifying it as Bengal gram. (See remarks under CALAVANCE.) The plant exudes oxalate of potash, and to walk through a gram-field in a wet morning is destructive to shoe-leather. The natives collect the acid.

[1513.—“And for the food of these horses (exported from the Persian Gulf) the factor supplied grãos.”—Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 200, Letter of Dec. 4.

[1554.—(Describing Vijayanagar.) “There the food of horses and elephants consists of grãos, rice and other vegetables, cooked with jagra, which is palm- tree sugar, as there is no barley in that country.”—Castanheda, Bk. ii. ch. 16.

[c. 1610.—“They give them also a certain grain like lentils.”—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 79.]

1702.—“…he confessing before us that their allowance three times a week is but a quart of rice and gram together for five men a day, but promises that for the future it shall be rectified.”—In Wheeler, ii. 10.

1776.—“…Lentils, gram…mustard seed.”—Hathed’s Code, p. 8 (pt. ii.).

1789.—“…Gram, a small kind of pulse, universally used instead of