Word.ws English Dictionary

sais

/seɪz//saɪs/

sais noun: a groom, or servant with responsibility for the horses.

sais: a groom, or servant with responsibility for the horses
Image: John Edmund Taylor, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

sais (plural saises)

  1. (India) A groom, or servant with responsibility for the horses.
    • Not one of them [horse dealers] will venture a horse, he is about to sell, in the stables of the intended purchaser, unless attended by one of his own syces, or grooms, who both knows and is known by the animal. If the horse be very old, or naturally dull, the syce takes care to ply him with spices...1808, Thomas Williamson, Oriental Field Sports; being a Complete, Detailed, and Accurate Description of the Wild Sports of the East … In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Printed by W[illiam] Bulmer...
    • 4th Troop 1st Brigade—3 rank and file, 1 syce, 17 horses, killed; […]1849 April 19, “General Return of Casualties in the Army of the Punjaub in the Action at Goojerat on the 21st February 1849, between the British Forces under the Personal Command of General the Right...
  2. (dated, Malaya) usually syce: chauffeur, driver.
    • House servants are usually either Chinese or Tamil, the former predominating, especially in towns of any size. The domestic staff will in general consist of a houseboy (in large establishments two houseboys), a water carrier (tukang ayer), whose duties include washing dishes and preparing baths, a...1935, Ralph Lionel German, Handbook to British Malaya, 1935, [London]: [R. L. German]: Obtainable from the Malay Information Agency, Waterlow and Sons, →OCLC, page 50
    • [A]fter their first few days there he had hired a syce, a Malay chauffeur. The syce, who had been squatting down, sheltering in the shade of the car, jumped to his feet at their approach, opening the doors for them with an efficient flourish.1988, Margaret Pemberton, A Multitude of Sins, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, →OCLC

Verb

sais

  1. Used to represent a nonstandard pronunciation of says.
    • 'Yes,' sais I, 'what's left of me; but, good gracious,' sais I, 'you have got the 'heaves.' I hope it ain't catchin'.1855 August, “Editor's Drawer”, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, volume XI, number LXIII, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 329 & 331 Pearl Street, Franklin Square, →OCLC, page 425
    • Well, he tak some young man un he go off to Alsaroke to steal horse, un I seet roun' un watch dat woman. She watch me. Pretty soon camp was hunt de buffalo, un I was hunt Snow-Owl's woman. Every one was excite, un dey don' tak no 'count of me. I see de woman go up leetle coulie for stray horse, un...2000, Frederic Remington, “Sun-Down Leflare's Warm Spot”, in John D. Seelye, editor, Stories of the Old West: Tales of the Mining Camp, Cavalry Troop, & Cattle Ranch, Norman, Ok.: University of...

Noun (2) capitalized: Sais

Sais (plural Sais or Saeson)

  1. (Wales, informal) Someone from England; Englander

Examples of sais in a sentence

  • Then all trace of him was lost, until a sais met me on Simla Mall with this extraordinary note:— […]1887 April 25, Rudyard Kipling, “Miss Youghal’s Sais”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co.; London: W. Thacker...
  • Dinner, dinner, dinner … but when he returned to the house for it, Mahmoud Ali had drifted away in his turn, to speak to his sais.1924, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, A Passage to India, London: Edward Arnold & Co., →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace &...
  • The sais (horse attendant), who had no such anxieties, crossed ahead of us and struggled for some minutes to drag the poor frightened animal, with myself on its back, across the chasm.1974, Apa Pant, “Dreams and Destinations”, in A Moment in Time, Bombay: Orient Longman, →OCLC, page 76:
  • Each pony had his sais, his groom, who lived and ate and slept with the animal, and had betted a good deal more than he could afford on the result of the game.2010, Rudyard Kipling with James Daley, comp., “The Maltese Cat”, in Great Horse Stories, Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, →ISBN, page 95:

Forms of sais

pluralsaises
alternative formsyce
alternative formsice
pluralSais
pluralSaeson

Origin of sais

From Hindi (Hindustani), from Arabic سَائِس (sāʔis, “stableman, groom”), from سَاس (sās, “to tend a horse”).

Nonstandard spelling of says.

Borrowed from Welsh Sais. Doublet of Saxon.

Phrases with sais

Words that rhyme with sais

31 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sais

What does sais mean?
Sais means a groom, or servant with responsibility for the horses.
How do you use sais in a sentence?
Then all trace of him was lost, until a sais met me on Simla Mall with this extraordinary note:— […]
What part of speech is sais?
Sais can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce sais?
Sais is pronounced /saɪs/ (UK).
What is the plural of sais?
The plural of sais is saises.

Words near sais in the dictionary

  1. saiques
  2. Sairem
  3. Sairusi
  4. Sairusis
  5. Sairy
  6. sais
  7. saises
  8. Saisiyat
  9. saison
  10. saisons
  11. saist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sais (page history and authors); Sais (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-sais.opus.

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