Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·South Asia ·1660s
Pundit
from paṇḍit (Sanskrit — "learned")
- Meaning
- A Brahmin scholar; an authority on scripture.
- Source word
- paṇḍit (Sanskrit — "learned")
- Route into English
- The British Raj used the word for its locally recruited learned advisors; it generalised to "opinionated expert" in 20th-century American English.
- Arrived
- 1660s
From South Asia
Three centuries of British colonial contact — East India Company, Raj, military, domestic life — deposited a distinct Hindi/Urdu/Bengali/Sanskrit layer in everyday English.
English borrows.
Browse the full loanword atlas or explore another source language.