194 BORROWED INDIAN WORDS 



into England through returned Anglo-Indians and 

 spread by their own merit. One of these is Loot. 

 The dictionary says that it means "to plunder," 

 but it holds more than that or any equivalent 

 English word. Perhaps it has scarcely risen above 

 the level of slang yet, but the phrase " to run amuck ' ' 

 is classical, having been used by both Pope and 

 Dryden. The pedantic attempt made by some 

 writers to change the common way of writing 

 it because the original Malay term is a single 

 word, " amok," comes too late in view of Dryden' s 

 line, 



" And runs an Indian muck at all he meets." 



Cheese, in the sense of a thing, or rather of " the 

 very thing," must be ranked as slang too, though 

 very common. The slang dictionaries give fanciful 

 derivations from Anglo-Saxon roots, or suggest that 

 it is a perversion of " chose " ; but it is a common 

 Hindustani word for a thing, and when an English- 

 man in India finds some article which exactly suits 

 his purpose and exclaims, " Ah ! that's the cheese," 

 no one needs to ask the derivation. If it did not 

 come to us directly from India, then it came through 

 the gipsies, for it is one of the many Hindustani 

 words which occur in their language. Another 

 word that came from India indirectly is Caste, but 

 it is of Portuguese origin. The early Portuguese 

 writers applied it ("casta") to the hereditary 

 division of Hindu society, and the English adopted 



