hathi

hathi (plural hathis)

1. (rare, obsolete) an elephant

   1890, Rudyard Kipling, Mandalay:

   We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak. Elephints a-pilin' teak

   1922, Earl Louis Mountbatten Mountbatten of Burma, The Diaries of Lord Louis Mountbatten 1920-1922:

   the Hathi is a wily animal , and will face fire and steel rather than what he suspects to be a trap

   1923, E. H. D. Sewell, The Log of a Sportsman, page 151:

   Here were we , jampacked on a narrow track down which the hathi was certain to come if he came at all , not a fire - iron of any sort among the lot of us , to all appearances not a vestige of an escape on either side