Ryot
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A farmer or tiller of the soil. India
"We have seen, however, how the condition arose, namely, that the Government at first half-intended to make a permanent settlement direct with the ryots, but subsequently altered its intention and devolved this duty upon the zemindars."
Example
More examples"We have seen, however, how the condition arose, namely, that the Government at first half-intended to make a permanent settlement direct with the ryots, but subsequently altered its intention and devolved this duty upon the zemindars."
Etymology
17th century. From Hindi रैयत (raiyat, “peasant”), from Urdu رعیت (ra'iyat, “peasant”), from Classical Persian رَعِیَّت (ra'iyyat, “population, peasants”), from Arabic رَعِيَّة (raʕiyya, “flock, herd”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.