The word "coolie" today is often considered disrespectful, evoking memories of a time of exploitation.
Source: tatoeba (13562210)
Coolie
//ˈkuːli//
Synonyms for "coolie" (40 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (8)
Strong matches (12)
Related words (20)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
More general
2 entriesRelated terms
1 entriesderived
5 entrieshas context
4 entriesis a
1 entriesrelated to
6 entriesTranslations
40 translations across 28 languages.
Afrikaans
1 entries- koelie noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Burmese
1 entries- ကူလီ noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Chinese
4 entries- 居里 noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- 苦力 noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- 苦力 noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- 苦役 noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Chinese Cantonese
1 entries- 咕哩 noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Chinese Mandarin
1 entries- 苦力 noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Czech
1 entries- kuli noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Dutch
1 entries- koelie noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Finnish
1 entries- kuli noun (unskilled Asian worker)
French
1 entries- coolie noun (unskilled Asian worker)
German
1 entries- Kuli noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Greek
1 entries- κούλης noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Hindi
4 entries- क़ुली noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- कुली noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- मजदूर noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- मज़दूर noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Hungarian
1 entries- kuli noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Indonesian
2 entries- kuli noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- pekerja kasar noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Japanese
1 entries- 苦力 noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Khmer
1 entries- គូលី noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Korean
1 entries- 쿨리 noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Malay
1 entries- kuli noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Polish
1 entries- kulis noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Portuguese
3 entries- cole noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- cule noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- cúli noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Russian
3 entries- ку́ли noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- чернома́зый noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- чу́рка noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Slovak
1 entries- kuli noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Spanish
1 entries- culi noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Swahili
1 entries- kuli noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Swedish
1 entries- kuli noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Turkish
1 entries- köle noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Urdu
1 entries- قلی noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Vietnamese
2 entries- cu li noun (unskilled Asian worker)
- phu noun (unskilled Asian worker)
Sample sentences
8 total sentences available.
One day when the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid had just arrived in the Cemetery, they saw some coolies breaking ground.
Source: wiktionary
From Hui-li-chou northwards I was escorted by real soldiers, quite of the new service. They looked rather shipshape in khaki suits and puttees, and their guns were of a good model, but they handled them in careless fashion at first, belabouring laden ponies and even coolies who were slow in getting out of the way of my chair.
Source: wiktionary
Outside, beyond the sun-baked station yard, a rice mill chugged away in the distance, and sweating coolies unloaded bags of rice from creaking bullock carts.
Source: wiktionary
Showing 4 of 8 available sentences.
Keep exploring
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.