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.

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 ( 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.

• gurry-butt

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967