Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from Urdu. Partly a borrowing from Persian.
Etymons:Urduzamīndār; Persianzamīndār.
< (i) Urduzamīndār, zamīdār (pronounced with either /a/ or /æ/ in the first syllable),and its etymon (ii) Persianzamīndār, zamīdar<zamīn land, ground (ultimately < the same Indo-European base as…
< (i) Urduzamīndār, zamīdār (pronounced with either /a/ or /æ/ in the first syllable),and its etymon (ii) Persianzamīndār, zamīdar<zamīn land, ground (ultimately < the same Indo-European base as classical Latinhumus: see humusn.) + dār, forming nouns denoting a person who holds or possesses (see amildarn.).
Notes
Forms with initial j- reflect a colloquial Urdu pronunciation.
In early use in English sometimes difficult to distinguish from jamadarn. (which is sometimes written in a similar way); confusion with this word may have influenced the α forms.
Meaning & use
Now historical.
1683–
In South Asia: (in the Mughal period) a landholder responsible for paying land revenue for an area to the emperor and carrying out certain other duties in return for retaining a percentage of the amount collected; (later, under British rule) a landowner required to pay a fixed land tax directly to the government.
The status of the zamindars and the extent of the lands they held varied considerably, some being extremely wealthy and powerful. The zamindari system continued to operate in some form in many parts of British India until Independence in 1947, although it was more prevalent in the north than in the south where the ryotwari system predominated (cf. ryotwariadj.).
1683
We lay at Bogatcher,..ye Gemidar invited us ashore, and shewed us Store of Deer, Peacocks, &c.
W. Hedges, Diary (1887) vol. I. 77
1698
Paying the said Rent to the King as the Jemidars have successively done.
Extract Consultations at Chuttanutte 31 October in W. Crooke, Yule & Burnell's Hobson-Jobson (1903) 980/1
1713
Mr. Edwd. Page... Jemendar.
in H. Yule & A. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson (1886) at Zemindar
1764
To all governors, officers..and zemindars..in the provinces of Bengal.
Annual Register, State Papers 188/1
1783
The Zemindars, who are the present great landholders of India, are likewise a sort of hereditary princes of the country.
Annual Register 1781 Hist. Europe 177*/1
1845
The Zemindars had been formerly charged with the management of the police, and were held accountable for all acts of robbery or violence committed within their Zemindaris.
H. H. Wilson, History of British India 1805–35vol. I. vii. 401
1876
We have the overlord, the zemindar, no longer holding in feudal tenure and receiving customary dues and services, but turned by us into a rent-receiver.
Journal of Statistical Society.vol. 39 652
1914
Joseph Henry Atkinson, Esq...for many years of Calcutta, Rajmahal, and Maldo, Contractor, Indigo Planter, and Zemindar.
Times 27 November 1/1
1978
East Bengal had (until shortly after independence) a landholding system in which large numbers of tillers were tenants or under-tenants to large landowners (known as zamindars), or to intermediary absentee rent collectors.
M. Weiner, Sons of Soil iii. 101
2015
The zamindars..had since Mughal times, owned land and looked after the maintenance of irrigation works and embankments.
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛtl/ but /ˈpɛtl̩i/.
Vowels
iːfleece
ihappy
ɪkit
ɛdress
atrap, bath
ɑːstart, palm, bath
ɒlot
ɔːthought, force
ʌstrut
ʊfoot
uːgoose
əletter
əːnurse
ɪənear
ɛːsquare
ʊəcure
eɪface
ʌɪpride
aʊmouth
əʊgoat
ɔɪvoice
ãgratin
ɒ̃salon
ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛd(ə)l/ but /ˈpɛdl̩i/.
Vowels
ifleece, happy
ɪkit
ɛdress
ætrap, bath
ɑlot, palm, cloth, thought
ɑrstart
ɔcloth, thought
ɔrnorth, force
ʊfoot
ugoose
əstrut, comma
ərnurse, letter
ɪ(ə)rnear
ɛ(ə)rsquare
ʊ(ə)rcure
eɪface
aɪpride
aʊmouth
oʊgoat
ɔɪvoice
ɑ̃gratin
æ̃salon
ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.
Simple text respell breaks words into syllables, separated by a hyphen. The syllable which carries the primary stress is written in capital letters. This key covers both British and U.S. English Simple Text Respell.
Consonants
b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w and z have their standard English values
gguy
jjay
yyore
chchore
khloch
shshore
ththaw
dhthee
zhbeige
Vowels
atrap
ahpalm
airsquare
arstart
arrcarry (British only)
awthought
ayface
a(ng)gratin
edress
eefleece
eerdeer
errmerry
ikit
ighpride
irrmirror
olot (British only)
ohgoat
oogoose
oorcure
orforce
orrsorry (British only)
owmouth
oyvoice
o(ng)salon
ustrut
uhletter
urnurse
urrhurry
uufoot
Forms
Variant forms
α.
1600s
gemidar
1600s–1700s
jemidar, jemmidar
1700s
jemitdar, zemidar
1800s
jumidar
β.
1700s
jemendar
1700s–1800s
zimeendar
1700s–1900s
zemendar
1700s–
zamindar, zemindar
1800s
zemeendar, zumeendar
Frequency
zamindar typically occurs about 0.6 times per million words in modern written English.
zamindar is in frequency band 4, which contains words occurring between 0.1 and 1 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands
Frequency data is computed programmatically, and should be regarded as an estimate.
Frequency of zamindar, n., 1770–2010
* Occurrences per million words in written English
Historical frequency series are derived from Google Books Ngrams (version 2), a data set based on the Google Books corpus of several million books printed in English between 1500 and 2010.
The overall frequency for a given word is calculated by summing frequencies for the main form of the word, any plural or inflected forms, and any major spelling variations.
For sets of homographs (distinct entries that share the same word-form, e.g. mole, n.¹, mole, n.², mole, n.³, etc.), we have estimated the frequency of each homograph entry as a fraction of the total Ngrams frequency for the word-form. This may result in inaccuracies.
Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the Google Books corpus.
Decade
Frequency per million words
1770
0.021
1780
0.035
1790
0.028
1800
0.021
1810
0.022
1820
0.024
1830
0.018
1840
0.038
1850
0.096
1860
0.15
1870
0.18
1880
0.22
1890
0.25
1900
0.23
1910
0.23
1920
0.27
1930
0.35
1940
0.49
1950
0.63
1960
0.74
1970
0.8
1980
0.74
1990
0.63
2000
0.57
2010
0.48
Frequency of zamindar, n., 2017–2024
* Occurrences per million words in written English
Modern frequency series are derived from a corpus of 20 billion words, covering the period from 2017 to the present. The corpus is mainly compiled from online news sources, and covers all major varieties of World English.
Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the corpus.