Word.ws English Dictionary

kalgis

kalgis is the plural of kalgi.

Meaning of kalgi

Noun (1)

kalgi (countable and uncountable, plural kalgis)

  1. (India) A black heron feather that is worn on a turban as a symbol of nobility.
    • The herons of Kashmir were the main source of supply of feathers which were in great demand for plumes (Kalgis) worn by the Sikh Ministers, Officers of high ranks and other men of importance.1984, C. Baron V. Hugel, Kashmir Under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, page 64
  2. (India) An ornament worn on the front of a turban as a symbol of status.
    • When the question of kalgi and its whereabouts arose, Archer candidly stated that he could not find any kalgi with Lady Broun Lindsay , a descendant of Lord Dalhousie from whom the weapons of Guru Gobind Singh were acquired and nor was it in the Victoria and Albert Museum.1986, Mohinder Singh Randhawa, Indian Paintings: Exploration, Research, and Publications, page 253
  3. A competitive style of lavani.
    • The Kalgi- group represented the female element in nature and the Tura the male.1937, Haeem Samuel Kehimkar, Immanuel Olsvanger, The History of the Bene Israel of India, page 232

Noun (2)

kalgi (plural kalgi)

  1. A prisoner of war taken by the native Alaskan Alutiiq people and kept as a slave.
    • Strong and brave warriors could have concubines from among their kalgi, that is, female war captives. Children, born of such captives were not accounted as kalgi.1984, Richard Austin Pierce, Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District, page 194
  2. One of a set of conjoined igloos that form an apartment-like arrangement.
    • The kalgi had low roofs, just taller than a man, but they were very wide.2008 Spring, Zoe Ho, “The Art of the Pihiq (song)”, in Tusaayaksat, page 15

Questions about kalgis

What is kalgis the plural of?
Kalgis is the plural of kalgi.

Words near kalgis in the dictionary

  1. Kalga
  2. Kalgan
  3. kalghi
  4. kalghis
  5. kalgi
  6. kalgis
  7. Kalgoorlie
  8. Kalgoorlie-Boulder
  9. kalguksu
  10. Kalhahan'dhihuraa
  11. Kalhaidhoo

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kalgis (page history and authors); kalgi (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.

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Cite this entry: “kalgis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kalgis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.