Pagri

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A headdress worn by men in India, comprising a several-metre-long band of fabric wound around the head. India

    "The poor labourer was at first somewhat astonished, and frightened by this sudden metamorphosis, but soon overcoming the new feeling, he carefully tied the ruby in his pagri or turban, and returned home […]"

  2. 2
    A puggry. India

    "I recognized the eldest Miss Copleigh, because she had a pagri round her helmet, and the younger had not."

  3. 3
    A payment made to secure the long-term rental of a property. India, Pakistan

    "A pagri was a form of "illegal payment" that had developed to circumvent colonial rent restrictions. Landlords demanded a large lump-sum payment in lieu of the low monthly rent, and this also made it very difficult for refugees without means to rent houses in the city."

Example

More examples

"The poor labourer was at first somewhat astonished, and frightened by this sudden metamorphosis, but soon overcoming the new feeling, he carefully tied the ruby in his pagri or turban, and returned home […]"

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindustani पगड़ी (pagṛī) / پگڑی.

Related phrases

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