gurry

From Hindi गढ़ी (gaṛhī, “fort”).

gurry (plural gurries)

1. (historical, India) A circular gong that was struck at regular intervals to indicate the time.
   • 1814, The Annals of Philosophy - Volume 2, page 260:

     Among those in general use that have drawn the attention of Europeans living in India, are the alloys for the gurry, and the Biddery ware. The gurry is a disk of a cubit and upwards in diameter, about half an inch in thickness in the centre, but decreasing toward the circumference, where it is scarcely more than 1/4 of an inch. It is used to mark the divisions of time, by striking it with a wooden mallet.

   • 1823, William Brown, Antiquities of the Jews, page 138:

     As they have no hour glasses, they measure their time by a kind of clepsydra. It is a small brass basin, about four inches in diameter, made thin enough to float on the water, with a hole in the bottom which admits as much as to fill it exactly in one gurry, or twenty-two and a half minutes. The sinking, therefore, of the vessel, is the signal for striking the gurry, and warning the inhabitants.

   • 1853, John Ryder, Four Years' Service in India, page 54:

     54 On the 18th, we halted at sunset, as usual, and most of us were walking out into the woods -- some getting wood for cooking, others looking for hares — when we heard a gurry strike seven o'clock.

2. (historical, India) The time interval indicated by striking the gurry. Originally, this was twenty-two and a half minutes, but later, under British influence, changed to an hour.
   • 1776, Nandakumara (Mahārāja), The Trial of Maha Rajah Nundocomar, Bahader, for Forgery, page 68:

     Maha Rajah then got up, and we three likewise took our leaves; when we went into an outer house, Seat Bollakey Doss said to me, Do you likewise come along with me; and I haveing gotten a bond written out and sealed, you will see it done; he having said this, I agreed; he having got into his palankeen went away, we four people followed him, he having gone with his palankeen, half a gurry after we followed him, we likewise arrived at his house.

   • 1816, Thomas Bayly Howell, A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors, page 997:

     Half a gurry after that, I went away too.

   • 1823, William Brown, Antiquities of the Jews, page 138:

     As they have no hour glasses, they measure their time by a kind of clepsydra. It is a small brass basin, about four inches in diameter, made thin enough to float on the water, with a hole in the bottom which admits as much as to fill it exactly in one gurry, or twenty-two and a half minutes.

3. (India) A small fort.
   • 1819, Sylvanus Urban, “Interesting Intelligence from the London Gazettes”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, page 262:

     Since then, and in the course of yesterday afternoon, the town and gurry of Jubbulpore have been entirely evacuated by armed people of every description.

   • 1839, David Price, Edward Moor, Memoirs of the Early Life and Service of a Field Officer:

     This was without the village, which, independently of the clay-built wall with which it was encircled, is further protected by a gurry, or little fort, on the acclivity of the hill, which arises from it to the westward.

   • 1886, The Asiatic Quarterly Review - Volume 1, page 94:

     Immediately after this, Sir Hugh Rose received an express, reporting that a large body of rebels, reinforced by such of the garrison as had escaped from Rathghur, had concentrated at Barodia, a strong village on the left bank of the river Beena, with a "gurry," or small fort, surrounded by dense jungle, situated about twenty-two miles from Rathghur.

Origin unknown. Attested from the mid-nineteenth century. Perhaps derived from Middle English gore, gor, gorre (“mud, muck”), from Old English gor (“manure, dung, filth, muck, dirt”), from Proto-West Germanic *gor, from Proto-Germanic *gurą (“half-digested stomach contents; faeces; manure”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰer- (“hot; warm”). Compare Saterland Frisian Gorre (“muddy liquid; thick, liquid manure”), Old Norse gorr, gor (“intestines, (half-digested) intestinal contents, filth, dung; peat, silt-esc earth”).

• gyre, gyur, ger, gerr, gurr (dialectal)

gurry (uncountable)

1. Fishing offal.
   • 1878, Sir Alexander Galt, “Award of the fishery commission”, in Executive Documents for the House of Representatives for the Second Session of the Forty-Fifth Congress ([US] House of Representatives), page 2806:

     The practice of throwing overboard gurry is in many respects reprehensible, because in the first place it is a very great waste of animal matter.

   • 1995, Dana Stabenow, Play with Fire, →ISBN, page 18:

     She decided that in the future she'd take scales and gurry over soot and ash.

   • 2013, Sheldon Bart, Race to the Top of the World, →ISBN:

     And when I got to describing the muck and gurry of a seal hunt I had to push the English tongue pretty hard to get the colors somewhere near the real picture; and once in a while I used to talk loud, sometimes when everybody else was piping down.

   • 2017, William B. McCloskey, Warriors, →ISBN, page 278:

     With the butchering over, they hosed each other of any crap and gurry not washed from their oilskins by the seas, then kicked the remaining mess over the side.

2. (now dialectal) Diarrhoea.

• gurry-butt

• “gurry” in Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary: Based on Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, 7th edition, Springfield, Mass.: G[eorge] & C[harles] Merriam, 1963 (1967 printing), →OCLC.

Derived from Irish gearr, from Middle Irish gerr.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡoriː/

gurry

1. Light rain.

• Diarmaid Ó Muirithe (1990), “A Modern Glossary of the Dialect of Forth and Bargy”, in lrish University Review‎^[1], volume 20, number 1, Edinburgh University Press, page 157