Word.ws English Dictionary

mudaliyar

mudaliyar noun: a chief or headman in Sri Lanka.

Noun

mudaliyar (plural mudaliyars)

  1. (historical) A chief or headman in Sri Lanka.
    • He had been a Mudaliyar or Headman of East Giruwa Pattu […] when I was Assistant Government Agent there fifty years ago.1969, Leonard Woolf, Journey Not Arrival Matters
    • Other Mudliyars said they couldn't join in the first instance but would send on ‘Thieves and rogues (black guard fellows who certainly do abound).’2020, Sujit Sivasundaram, Waves Across the South, William Collins, published 2021, page 228
  2. A Tamil caste in India.

Forms of mudaliyar

pluralmudaliyars
alternative formmudaliar
alternative formmudliyar

Origin of mudaliyar

From Tamil முதலியார் (mutaliyār) (plural of முதலி (mutali, “chief”)), in early forms probably via Portuguese modeliar.

Questions about mudaliyar

What does mudaliyar mean?
Mudaliyar means a chief or headman in Sri Lanka.
What part of speech is mudaliyar?
Mudaliyar is a noun.
What is the plural of mudaliyar?
The plural of mudaliyar is mudaliyars.

Words near mudaliyar in the dictionary

  1. muda
  2. mudalia
  3. Mudaliar
  4. Mudaliars
  5. mudalias
  6. mudaliyar
  7. mudaliyars
  8. Mudan
  9. mudang
  10. mudangs
  11. Mudanjiang

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mudaliyar (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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