hundin.
/ˈhʊndi/, U.S. /ˈhʊndi/ India.
A negotiable instrument, such as a bill of exchange or promissory note, used by native bankers in India and worded in the vernacular; also, money remitted by such an instrument.
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society > trade and finance > money > medium of exchange or currency > paper money > promissory notes or bills of exchange > [noun] > a promissory note or bill of exchange
exchange1485
bill1579
bill1613
hundi1619
assignment1622
cambio1645
note1653
order1673
bank bill1682
banknote1695
assignation1704
promissory note1710
note of hand1728
stiff1823
time bill1842
PO1861
marker1887
1619 in W. Foster Eng. Factories India 1618–21 (1906) 85 [They advise the dispatch of bills of exchange for rupees] hundies [17,100].
1620 in W. Foster Eng. Factories India 1618–21 (1906) 182 The exchange of rup[ees] secaus for hundies.
1810 T. Williamson E. India Vade-mecum II. 330 Hoondiés (i.e. banker's drafts) would be of no use whatever to them.
1913 J. M. Keynes Indian Currency & Finance vi. 197 The hoondees they buy and sell to each other..are chiefly the traders' hoondees bearing the shroffs' own endorsements.
1930 Economist 12 Apr. 820/1 Bills (hundis) of the native type.
1963 Times 18 May 8/4 It is thought that gold smuggling gangs obtain funds by operating the ‘Hundi’ system among Pakistani immigrants in Britain.
1969 Commerce (Bombay) 26 July 150/2 Apprehensions..may push up the rate of interest in the free market from 15–18 per cent to 20–24 per cent against the hundies, promissory notes and short loans.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1933; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1619