backsishe
backsishe is the alternative form of baksheesh.
Meaning of baksheesh
Noun
baksheesh (usually uncountable, plural baksheeshes)
- In the Middle East or southwest Asia: a bribe or tip.
- What an honour to think that I am to be elevated to the throne, and to bring the seat in Parliament as backsheesh to the sultan!1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Temptation”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 265
- Synonyms:
- grease payment, lubrication payment
- A minor wound that necessitates the evacuation of a soldier from the combat zone for medical treatment.
- When we had made the boys as comfortable as possible and given them fags, of which our Padre seemed to have an inexhaustable^([sic]) supply, they were quite cheerful, and joked about “backsheesh” wounds.1981, The Kia Ora Coo-ee: The Magazine for the ANZACS in the Middle East, 1918, →ISBN
- Synonyms:
- buckshee, Blighty one
Forms of backsishe
| plural | backsishes |
|---|
Questions about backsishe
- What is backsishe the alternative form of?
- Backsishe is the alternative form of baksheesh.
Words near backsishe in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: backsishe (page history and authors); baksheesh (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “backsishe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/backsishe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
