Etymology
In Hindi, the region is called तराई tarāī meaning foot-hill. In Nepali, the region is called तराइ tarāi meaning the low-lying land, plain, especially the low-lying land at the foot of the Himālayas, south to the border with India. Nepalis may also call it Madhes (Nepali: मधेस), particularly when noting its ethnic compositions similar to adjacent India and unlike the ethnic makeup of the "hills" (Nepali: पहाड, pahārd). The region's name in Urdu is ترائي tarāʼī meaning lands lying at the foot of a watershed or on the banks of a river low ground flooded with water, valley, basin, marshy ground, marsh, swamp; meadow.
Read more about this topic: Terai
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)