giaour

giaour

English

Etymology

From Ottoman Turkish كاور‎ (gâvur), from Persian گاور‎ (gâvor), a variant of گبر‎ (gabr, “infidel”); see there for more. Doublet of Gheber.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒaʊə/

Noun

giaour (plural giaours)

1. (religious slur) A non-Muslim, especially a Christian, an infidel; especially as used by Turkish people with particular reference to Christians such as Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Serbs and Assyrians.
   • 1963, Thomas Pynchon, V.:

     We men are not a race of freebooters or giaours; not when our argosies are prey and food to the evil fish-of-metal whose lair is a German U-boat.

   • 2001, Orhan Pamuk, Erdağ M. Göknar (translator), My Name Is Red:

     I shudder in delight when I think of two-hundred-year-old books, dating back to the time of Tamerlane, volumes for which acquisitive giaours gleefully relinquish gold pieces and which they carry all the way back to their own countries […] .

   • 2004, Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, “The Giaour” in Character Sketches Of Romance, Fiction And The Drama, volume 2, page 85:

     Byron’s tale called The Giaour is supposed to be told by a Turkish fisherman who had been employed all the day in the gulf of Ægi’na, and landed his boat at night-fall on the Piræus, now called the harbor of Port Leonê. […] The tale is this: Leilah, the beautiful concubine of the Caliph Hasson^[sic], falls in love with a giaour, flees from the seraglio, is overtaken by an emir, put to death, and cast into the sea. The giaour cleaves Hassan’s skull, flees for his life, and becomes a monk.

Translations

infidel

Albanian: qafir m Arabic: كَافِر‎ m (kāfir) Armenian: գյավուր (hy) (gyavur) Azerbaijani: gavur (az), kafir (az) Bulgarian: гяу́р (bg) m (gjaúr) Czech: džaur m Georgian: ურჯულო (urǯulo), ურწმუნო (urc̣muno), გიაური (giauri) Greek: γκιαούρης (el) m (gkiaoúris) Hindi: काफ़िर m (kāfir) Hungarian: gyaur Indonesian: kafir (id) Italian: giaurro (it) Kazakh: кәпір (käpır) Kyrgyz: каапыр (ky) (kaapır) Macedonian: ѓаур m (ǵaur), каурин (kaurin) Malay: kafir Persian: کافر‎ (fa) (kâfer), گبر‎ (fa) (gabr), گاور‎ (gâvor) (archaic) Polish: giaur (pl) m Portuguese: giaour m Russian: гяу́р (ru) m (gjaúr), ка́фи́р (ru) m (káfír), кя́фи́р (ru) m (kjáfír) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: ђаур m, ђаурин m, каур m, каурин m Roman: đaur (sh) m, đaurin m, kaur (sh) m, kaurin m Tajik: кофир (kofir), габр (gabr) Turkish: gâvur (tr), kâfir (tr) Turkmen: kapyr Urdu: کافر‎ m (kāfir) Uyghur: كاپىر‎ (kapir) Uzbek: kofir (uz), gʻayridin (uz)

References

• “‖Giaour” on page 172 of § 2 (G) of volume IV (F and G, ed. Henry Bradley, 1901) of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (1st ed.)

Further reading

• giaour on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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French

Noun

giaour m (plural giaours)

1. (religious slur) giaour

Further reading

• “giaour”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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Portuguese

Noun

giaour m (plural giaours)

1. (religious slur) giaour (term for a non-Muslim used by Turks)