Munshi

//ˈmuːnʃiː// name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A clerk or secretary. South-Asia

    "Then Your Committee examined Goneſhamdaſs, who was formerly Moonſhee, or Perſian Tranſlator, to Colonel Graham; [...]"

  2. 2
    A language teacher, especially one teaching Hindustani or Persian. South-Asia

    "Several of us, at one time or another, engaged "moonshis" or teachers, and tried to learn Hindustani, in which language, with one exception I think, none of us became very proficient."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms
moonshee

Example

More examples

"Then Your Committee examined Goneſhamdaſs, who was formerly Moonſhee, or Perſian Tranſlator, to Colonel Graham; [...]"

Etymology

Borrowed from Urdu منشی (munšī, “secretary; munshi”) or directly from its etymon Classical Persian منشی (munšī, “secretary; munshi”), from Arabic مُنْشِئ (munšiʔ, “teacher; writer”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.