purdah
English
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈpəːdɑː/, /ˈpəːdə/
Noun
purdah (countable and uncountable, plural purdahs)
- (chiefly South Asia) A curtain, especially as used to conceal and divide women from men and strangers in some Hindu or Muslim traditions. [from 17th c.]
- 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘A Wayside Comedy’, Under the Deodars, Folio Society 2005, p. 34:
- As she passed through the dining-room, she heard, behind the purdah that cloaked the drawing-room door, her husband's voice […]
- 1924, EM Forster, A Passage to India, Penguin 2005, p. 11:
- ‘Come and see my wife a little then,’ said Hamidullah, and they spent twenty minutes behind the purdah.
- 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘A Wayside Comedy’, Under the Deodars, Folio Society 2005, p. 34:
- (rare, obsolete) A striped cotton cloth which is used to make curtains. [19th c.]
- The state or system of social gender seclusion in some Muslim or Hindu communities. [from 19th c.]
- A long veil, or other all-enveloping clothing, worn by women in some Muslim societies. [from 20th c.]
- (figuratively) Secrecy, isolation. [from 20th c.]
- (Britain) The period immediately before an election or referendum during which restrictions are in force on the activity of civil servants.
Usage notes
The use of a term that refers to the practice of secluding women for the pre-election period in the UK may be found offensive.
Related terms
Malay
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