coolie
/ˈkuːli/
coolie noun: an unskilled Asian worker, usually of Chinese or Indian descent; a labourer; a porter. Coolies were frequently transported to other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries as indentured labourers.
Noun
coolie (plural coolies)
- An unskilled Asian worker, usually of Chinese or Indian descent; a labourer; a porter. Coolies were frequently transported to other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries as indentured labourers.
- One day when the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid had just arrived in the Cemetery, they saw some coolies breaking ground.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “At the Pit's Mouth”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 52
- From Hui-li-chou northwards I was escorted by real soldiers, quite of the new service. They looked rather shipshape in khaki suits and puttees, and their guns were of a good model, but they handled them in careless fashion at first, belabouring laden ponies and even coolies who were slow in getting...1913, Elizabeth Kimball Kendall, A Wayfarer in China
- An Indian or a person of Indian descent.
- Well, he and his troops had shown the koefietjies-the little coolies-how quickly and how easily Afrikaner explosive shells could knock it down.1991, Larry Bond, Patrick Larkin, Vortex, page 56
- Even a coolie would have been better.2014, Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings, Oneworld Publications (2015), page 199
coolie meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
coolie in Hindi
- unskilled Asian worker
- क़ुली qulī, कुली kulī, मज़दूर mazdūr, मजदूर majdūr
coolie in Tamil
- கூலி, கூலியாள்
coolie in Urdu
- unskilled Asian worker
- قلی qulī
coolie in Malayalam
- coolie
- കൂലി kūli
More languagesFewer languages
- coolie in Kannada
- ಹಮಾಲ, ಕೂಲಿಯವನು
- coolie in Gujarati
- કુલી kulī
- coolie in Assamese
- কুলি kuli
- coolie in Malay
- kuli
- coolie in Indonesian
- kuli, pekerja kasar
- coolie in Vietnamese
- cu li, phu
- coolie in Myanmar
- ကူလီ kuli
Examples of coolie in a sentence
- Outside, beyond the sun-baked station yard, a rice mill chugged away in the distance, and sweating coolies unloaded bags of rice from creaking bullock carts.1943 November and December, G. T. Porter, “The Lines Behind the Lines in Burma”, in Railway Magazine, page 325:
- Coolie-identity is as much the product of self-perception as it is the construction of a category by those who did not belong to it.1992, Jan Breman, E. Valentine Daniel, “Conclusion: The Making of a Coolie”, in E. Valentine Daniel, Henry Bernstein, Tom Brass, editors...
- Community histories did not necessarily feature the coolie, partly due to the fact that “coolie” is a classed term.2008, Lisa Yun, The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba, Temple University Press, page xix:
Forms of coolie
| plural | coolies |
|---|---|
| alternative form | coolee |
| alternative form | cooly |
| alternative form | kuli |
| alternative form | quli |
| alternative form | koelie |
Origin of coolie
Borrowed from Hindustani (Hindi क़ुली (qulī) / Urdu قلی (qulī, “hired laborer”)), from Chagatai قلی (quli, “servant, slave”), ultimately from Proto-Turkic *kul. Another theory says that it is named after Gujarati કોળી (koḷī), a Gujarati tribe or caste. Other forms occur in Bengali কুলি (kuli) and Tamil கூலி (kūli, “daily hire”). Possibly also influenced by Hindustani (कोली (kolī) / کولی (kolī, “weaver; low-class”)), or Persian کول (kūl, “shoulder [upon which goods are hauled]”). In Kurdish Koile (کۆیلە) and Quli (قولى): Slave, Servant. Kawli (Keweli): Low-Class, Gypsy. Mandarin 苦力 (kǔlì, “hard labor”) may also have been influenced by cognates of the above Hindi word in other languages and may have further influenced English.
Words formed from coolie
Phrases with coolie
Words that rhyme with coolie
Questions about coolie
- What does coolie mean?
- Coolie means an unskilled Asian worker, usually of Chinese or Indian descent; a labourer; a porter. Coolies were frequently transported to other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries as indentured labourers.
- What is coolie in Hindi?
- Coolie in Hindi is क़ुली (qulī), कुली (kulī), मज़दूर (mazdūr). See Coolie meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use coolie in a sentence?
- Outside, beyond the sun-baked station yard, a rice mill chugged away in the distance, and sweating coolies unloaded bags of rice from creaking bullock carts.
- What part of speech is coolie?
- Coolie is a noun.
- How do you pronounce coolie?
- Coolie is pronounced /ˈkuːli/.
- What is the plural of coolie?
- The plural of coolie is coolies.
Words near coolie in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: coolie (page history and authors); coolie (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); കൂലി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); coolie (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); કુલી (Gujarati) (page history and authors); কুলি (Assamese) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-coolie.ogg.
Cite this entry: “coolie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coolie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.