Madrasi

Madrasi noun: a native or resident of Chennai in India.

Noun

Madrasi (plural Madrasis)

(dated) A native or resident of Chennai in India.
- Runga Charlu was subjected to grave accusations in Mysore as he had the misfortune to be a Madrasi.1896, G. Paramaswaran Pillai, Representative Men of Southern India, Introduction, p. vii
Synonyms:

Chennaiite
(broadly) A native of South India; a person of South Indian extraction (exonym; often considered offensive).
- When the hardships of a Madrassi are complained of, we are told that a Panjabi is well off: that the taxation “on an average” is only so-and-so, Northern India being more lightly taxed than Southern.1916, Annie Besant, chapter 2, in India a Nation: A Plea for Indian Self-Government, London: T.C. & E.C. Jack, page 40
- ‘Oh, hell! I’d snivel psalms to oblige the padre, but I can’t stick the way these damned native Christians come shoving into our church. A pack of Madrassi servants and Karen school-teachers. […]’1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Chapter 2”, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC
A fairy chess rule where a piece that is attacked by a piece of the same type is paralyzed, rendering it unable to move.

Madrasi (not comparable)

plural	Madrasis
alternative form	Madrassi

What does Madrasi mean?: Madrasi means a native or resident of Chennai in India.
What part of speech is Madrasi?: Madrasi can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of Madrasi?: The plural of Madrasi is Madrasis.

Adapted from Wiktionary: Madrasi (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: 2026-09-02

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