Coolie

Quick meaning: Coolie is a noun meaning An unskilled Asian worker, usually of Chinese or Indian descent; a labourer; a porter. Coolies were frequently transported to other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries as indentured labourers.

Meaning

An unskilled Asian worker, usually of Chinese or Indian descent; a labourer; a porter. Coolies were frequently transported to other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries as indentured labourers.

More Meanings

1. (Trinidad and Tobago, Caribbean, Guyana, Jamaica, Fiji, South Africa and other parts of Africa, ethnic slur) An Indian or a person of Indian descent.

Example Sentences

Even a coolie would have been better.

One day when the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid had just arrived in the Cemetery, they saw some coolies breaking ground.

Well, he and his troops had shown the koefietjies-the little coolies-how quickly and how easily Afrikaner explosive shells could knock it down.

Outside, beyond the sun-baked station yard, a rice mill chugged away in the distance, and sweating coolies unloaded bags of rice from creaking bullock carts.

Word Forms

• coolies
• coolee
• cooly

Synonyms for coolie

Depending on context, synonyms include cooly.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include cooly, ricksha, cooli, koelie, quli, coaster.

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