gosainn.
/ɡəʊˈsʌɪn/, U.S. /ɡoʊˈsaɪn/ India.
A Hindu who professes a life of religious mendicancy.
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society > faith > church government > monasticism > friar > [noun] > Hindu
Pandaram1710
gosainc1774
Naga1828
c1774 G. Bogle in C. R. Markham Narr. Mission G. Bogle to Tibet (1876) xiii. 124 The Gosains, the trading pilgrims of India, resort hither in great numbers.
1793 W. Hodges Trav. India 112 A Gosine, or Hindoo Religious.
1813 J. Forbes Oriental Mem. II. xvi. 9 This village belongs exclusively to the Gosaings, or Senassees, a caste of religious Hindoo mendicants.
1826 W. B. Hockley Pandurang Hari I. 97 About five miles from the city I reached the hut of a Gossein. Note, A religious mendicant.
1923 19th Cent. Jan. 107 A certain gosain or Hindu devotee.
1957 Encycl. Brit. XXII. 939/2 Chaitanya himself, as well as his immediate disciples, have come to be regarded as complete or partial incarnations of..Krishna himself; and their modern successors, the Gosains, share to the fullest extent in the devout attentions of the worshippers.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1933; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.c1774