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Webster 1913 Edition


Zamindar

Zamˊin-dar′

,
Noun.
[Hind.
zemīndār
,
zamīndār
, a landholder, Per.
zamīndār
;
zamīn
land
dār
holding.]
A landowner; also, a collector of land revenue; now, usually, a kind of feudatory recognized as an actual proprietor so long as he pays to the government a certain fixed revenue.
[Written also
zemindar
.]
[India]

Definition 2024


zamindar

zamindar

English

Alternative forms

Noun

zamindar (plural zamindars)

  1. (now historical) An official tax-collector in British India.
  2. (now historical) An Indian landowner paying tax directly to the British government.
    • 2004, Khushwant Singh, Burial at Sea, Penguin 2014, p. 6:
      Indian princes, zamindars and industrialists engaged him as their counsel and paid him whatever he asked for as fees.
    • 2008, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, Penguin 2015, p. 39:
      Thus it happened that the approach of the Ibis was witnessed by Raja Neel Rattan Halder, the zemindar of Raskhali, who was on board the palatial barge with his eight-year-old son and a sizeable retune of attendants.