durwan

English

Etymology

From Hindustani دروان (drvān) / दरवान (darvān), from Classical Persian دروان (darwān), from دربان (darbān, “doorkeeper”), from در (dar, “door”) + ـبان (-bān, “keeper, guardian”).

Noun

durwan (plural durwans)

1. (India) A live-in doorkeeper, especially in an apartment building.
   • 1934, George Orwell, chapter 3, in Burmese Days‎^[1]:

     Old Mattu, the Hindu durwan who looked after the European church, was standing in the sunlight below the veranda.

   • 1940, Rabindranath Tagore, “My Boyhood Days”, in Amiya Chakravarty, editor, A Tagore Reader, Boston: Beacon Press, published 1966, page 94:

     Outside my retreat, our house was full of relatives and other people. […] Mukundalal the durwan is outside rolling on the ground with the one-eyed wrestler, trying out a new wrestling fall.

Anagrams

• undraw