sepoy

From Portuguese sipae, from Urdu سِپاہی (sipāhī) / Hindi सिपाही (sipāhī), from Classical Persian سِپَاهِی (sipāhī, “soldier, horseman”), from سِپَاه (sipāh, “army”).^[1] Doublet of spahi and sipahi.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsiːˌpɔɪ/, /sɪˈpɔɪ/
• 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 February, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Strange Story of Jonathan Small”, in The Sign of Four (Standard Library), London: Spencer Blackett […], →OCLC, page 238:

     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., 2003–2025.
• “sepoy”, in Collins English Dictionary.

• Posey, poesy, posey, poyse, poësy

Borrowed from English sepoy.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsi.pɔi̯/

sepoy m (plural sepoys, diminutive sepoytje n)

1. (historical) a sepoy, native soldier in the British East Indies, in particular British India