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1909, Rudyard Kipling, “A Wayside Comedy”, in Under the Deodars (The Works of Rudyard Kipling), Edinburgh de Luxe edition, Boston, Mass., London: The Edinburgh Society, →OCLC, page 64:
As she passed through the dining-room she heard, behind the purdah that cloaked the drawing-room door, her husband's voice, […]
(uncountable) The situation or system of secluding women from the gaze of people, particularly men and strangers, in some Muslim and Hindu traditions, by using a curtain or screen, and/or wearing a face veil or attire covering most of the body.
He was won by her love for him, by a loyalty that implied something more than submission, and by her efforts to educate herself against that lifting of the purdah that would come in the next generation if not in theirs.
Still, though the lettrist movement was not casual—members might be fined, put in purdah, or even expelled for malingering—aesthetic pluralism remained in effect.
2021 June 2, “Network News: ‘Root and Branch’ Review Three Years in the Making”, in Rail, number 932, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10:
Despite Rail Minister Chris Heaton-Harris's reassurance that "the White Paper is coming" it was further delayed by the period of purdah that preceded local elections held on May 6.
As regards sense 2.4, the use of a term that refers to the practice of secluding women to mean a pre-election period in the United Kingdom is regarded by some people as offensive.
^ Doane, Mary Ann (2021 October 18) Bigger Than Life: The Close-Up and Scale in the Cinema, Duke University Press, →ISBN, page 51: “In this respect, it is very interesting to note that the term "purdah," designating the veil worn over a woman's face in certain Islamic societies, is derived from the Hindi and Urdu "parda," meaning "screen," "curtain," or "veil."”
^ “Purdah”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), Lehigh University, 2019 December 15, retrieved 31 August 2022: “(Hindustani) Seclusion. "Purdah" literally means curtain or veil. In the Indian context it referred to women kept secluded from public life.”
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “purdah, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
purdah on Wikipedia.Wikipedia 