tindals

Noun

tindal (plural tindals)

1. (India, dated) A petty officer among lascars; a boatswain's mate; a cockswain.
   • One thing that continued unchanged was the division of the crew into two watches, each led by a tindal.2008, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, Penguin, published 2015, page 16
2. (India, dated) An attendant on an army.
   • The party left the island about four o clock in the afternoon, and after a pleasant passage of three hours, arrived at the Jaffna Customs, where a most untoward event took place which tended greatly to mar the pleasure of the day: the unfortunate wag of a tindal not having brought a boat-note with...1844, Peter Lund Simmonds, “The Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon”, in Simmonds's Colonial Magazine and Foreign Miscellany, volume 3, page 131

See all 3 meanings of tindal