sepoy

From Portuguese sipae, from Urdu سپاہی‎ (sipāhī)/Hindi सिपाही (sipāhī), from Persian سپاهی‎ (sepâhi, “soldier, horseman”), from سپاه‎ (sepâh, “army”)[1]. Doublet of spahi.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsiːˌpɔɪ/
• Rhymes: -iːpɔɪ
• Hyphenation: se‧poi

sepoy (plural sepoys)

1. (historical, military) A native soldier of the East Indies, employed in the service of a European colonial power, notably the British India army (first under the British-chartered East India Company, later in the crown colony), but also France and Portugal.
   • 1890, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four, London: Spencer Blackett:

     If our door were in the hands of the Sepoys the place must fall, and the women and children be treated as they were in Cawnpore.

   • 1997, Charles E. Davies, The Blood-red Arab Flag: An Investigation Into Qasimi Piracy, 1797-1820, University of Exeter Press, →ISBN, page 312:

     They proved to be the wives of a body of sepoys, also from the 5th Regiment of Bombay Native Infantry; the sepoys had perished, and their families been enslaved, when their pattamar had been captured by the Qawasim some months before.

2. (India, Pakistan, Nepal) The holder of an infantry enlisted rank equivalent to private in other countries.

• → Dutch: sepoy, sipoy
  • → Indonesian: sepoy
• → German: Sepoy
• → Italian: sepoy
• → Swedish: sepoy
  • → Finnish: sepoy
• → Turkish: sepoy

• “sepoy”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “sepoy”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “sepoy” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2023.
• “sepoy”, in Collins English Dictionary.

• Posey, poesy, posey, poyse, poësy

sepoy m (plural sepoys, diminutive sepoytje n)

1. A sepoy, native soldier in the East Indies