Crossword clues for lascar
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Lascar \Las"car\, n. [Per. & Hind. lashkar an army, an inferior artillery man, a cooly, a native sailor.] A native sailor, employed in European vessels; also, a menial employed about arsenals, camps, camps, etc.; a camp follower.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
East Indian sailor, 1620s, from Portuguese lachar, from Hindi lashkari "soldier, native sailor," from lashkar "army, camp," from Persian lashkar. Compare Arabic al-'askar "the army," perhaps from Persian.
Wiktionary
alt. A sailor, army servant or artilleryman from India or Southeast Asia. n. A sailor, army servant or artilleryman from India or Southeast Asia.
WordNet
n. an East Indian sailor
a volcano in the Andes in Chile
Wikipedia
A Lascar was a sailor or militiaman from South Asia, the Arab world, and other territories situated to the east of the Cape of Good Hope, who were employed on European ships from the 16th century until the middle of the 20th century. The word (also spelled lashkar, laskar) derives from al-askar, the Arabic word for a guard or soldier. The Portuguese adapted this term to "lascarim", meaning an Asian militiamen or seamen, specifically from any area East of the Cape of Good Hope. This means that Indian, Malay, Chinese and Japanese crewmen were covered by the Portuguese definition. The British of the East India Company initially described Indian lascars as 'Black Portuguese' or 'Topazes', but later adopted the Portuguese name, calling them 'Lascar'. Lascars served on British ships under "lascar agreements." These agreements allowed shipowners more control than was the case in ordinary articles of agreement. The sailors could be transferred from one ship to another and retained in service for up to three years at one time. The name Lascar was also used to refer to Indian servants, typically engaged by British military officers.
Lascar, a stratovolcano, is the most active volcano of the northern Chilean Andes.
Lascar may refer to:
- Lascar, a sailor or militiaman from South Asia employed by the European nations from the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th century
- Lascar (volcano), the most active volcano of the northern Chilean Andes
- Lascăr, a Romanian surname and given name
- Pantoporia, a genus of butterfly
- Upper and Lower Lascar Row, a street in Hong Kong
Lascăr is both a Romanian surname and a masculine Romanian given name. Notable people with the name include:
Surname:
- Bogdan Lascăr (born 1974), Romanian sculptor, graphic designer, and film maker
- Mihail Lascăr (1889–1959), Romanian General during World War II
Given name:
- Lascăr Catargiu (1823–1899), Romanian conservative statesman born in Moldavia
- Lascăr Vorel (1879—1918), Romanian Post-Impressionist painter
Usage examples of "lascar".
The tale opens abruptly with an opium-bred vision of the tower of Cloisterham Cathedral, beheld by Jasper as he awakens in the den of the Princess Puffer, between a Chinaman, a Lascar, and the hag herself.
English-speaking whites, its crew consisted largely of Malays and Lascars, while the waiters were mostly Japanese and Bengalese, wearing a costume compounded of their native gowns and the white aprons of European waiters.
We have two Indians - lascars - two Goanese, two Singhalese, two Poles, a Puerto Rican, a Southern Irishman and, for some odd reason, an Italian who, as an official enemy, ought to be a prisoner-of-war or in an internment camp somewhere.
Your Lascars turned out to be our Mohammedans, Huri and his brother, two as faithful creatures as I have on board.
The captain and most of the crew were taken on board of the frigate, but ten Lascars and the boys were left in the Indiaman, to assist in taking her into the Isle of France, which was at that time in the hands of the French.
The news wires were about to explode with the information that the face of the dazzlingly beautiful actress and film star, Isabella Lascar, had been obliterated, and that what was left of her body lay in the tiny Vineyard morgue, with a toe tag mislabeled in the name of Alexandra Cooper.
I trusted you alone in the boat to those rascally Lascars of the crew.
What with troops in old jackets, which had once been scarlet, Lascars with their curly black hair, and dark handsome features, yellow men, sickly women, and half-caste children, with their Hindoo Ayahs, tigers, lions, turtles, cows, sheep, goats, and pigs, on the booms and main deck, the vessel was in a strange motley of confusion.
Him"-he pointed at a lascar seaman-"rams it and you"-he peered at Braithwaite again-"puts the shot in and the blackie rams that as well and none of you landlubbers gets in his way, and you"-he looked at Sharpe-"aims the piece.
The Dyaks, whose orders as well as inclinations incited them to a general massacre, fell first upon Bududreen's lascars who, cornered in the small room, fought like demons for their lives, so that when the Dyaks had overcome them two of their own number lay dead beside the dead bodies of Bududreen's henchmen.
The Old World reaches down to draw him in: a couple of lascars, their flesh and breath suffused with saffron, asafœtida, and cardamom, lean over the rail, snare his cold pale hands in their warm black ones, and haul him in like a fish.
While he was searching for it - the marker had blown away during the last hymn but one -Jack noticed Stephen on the forecastle: he was directing the Worcester's other Papists, her two Jews and the Lascars she had inherited from the Skate to gather quails in baskets and launch them over the leeward side.
Braithwaite and the lascar put the powder and shot into the barrel, the lascar rammed it down, Sharpe pushed a sharpened wire through the touch-hole to pierce the canvas powder bag, then slid the reed into place.
The Lascar pretended that six years before, during a stay at Vanikoro, he had seen two Europeans that belonged to some vessels that had run aground on the reefs some years ago.
This infernal publicity is too shocking: there he sits while all these confounded natives, serangs, lascars, quartermasters, are giving evidence that's enough to burn a man to ashes with shame.