Etymology
"Goonda" probably comes from the Hindustani word guṇḍā (Hindi: गुण्डा, Urdu: گنڐا, "rascal"). There is also a Marathi word guṇḍā (गुंडा) with a similar meaning, attested as early as the 17th century, and possibly ultimately having Dravidian roots. Another theory suggests that it originates from the English word "goon". However, the first English-language appearance of "goonda" (in British newspapers of the 1920s, with the spelling "goondah") predates the use of "goon" to mean criminal, a semantic change which seems to go back only as far as the 1930s comic strip character Alice the Goon. A related term is "goonda-gardi", roughly meaning "bully-boy tactics". Another is "goonda tax", referring to bribes or money extorted in a protection racket.
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