List of English words of Romani origin

These are words in the English language which come from Romani.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Bar - 'stone' in Romani, but colloquially used to mean a pound coin
Chav - a member of a youth subculture (from cha = "child")^[1]
Chor - to steal, from the Romani word meaning the same
Cosh - a weapon, truncheon, baton (from the Romani word cosht = "stick")
Cushy - easy, good, fine (from the Romani word kusht or kushti)
Cushty - good (from the Romani word kusht or kushti)
Dinlo - idiot (either from the Romani word "dilo" meaning fool, or "dinilo" meaning crazy)
drag - to wear clothing carrying symbolic significance commonly associated with the opposite gender (possibly from indraka = "dress")
drag - a car, to race a car as in drag racing
Gadjo or Gadjie - a non-Romani
Jell - to go, from the Romani word "jall"
Lollipop - a type of candy, from the Romani "loli phabai", meaning red apple
Moosh - colloquial meaning a man, a bloke, from Romani moosh meaning man.
Nark - a police informer (from nāk, nose)
Pal - a friend, from the Romani word phral, meaning brother
Ratley - a female, from the Romani word "rakli" meaning the same
Romanipen - the spirit of being Romani, "Romani-ness"
Shiv - an improvised knife or similar weapon (possibly from chivomengro = "knife")
Skip (waste collecting container like on building sites) - from Romani word skip meaning basket
Togs - clothes (colloquial) from the Romani word togs meaning clothes^[2]

References

↑ "UK | 'Asbo' and 'chav' make dictionary". BBC News. 8 June 2005. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
↑ Johns Hopkins University; JSTOR (Organization) (1934). Modern Language Notes. 49. Johns Hopkins Press. p. 99. Retrieved 9 December 2011.

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/3/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.