Nargily

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A water pipe used for smoking flavored tobacco, with smoke drawn through a bowl of water before reaching the mouth
2. An oriental smoking apparatus in which vapor is cooled by passing through water in a long flexible tube
3. A hookah-style pipe from the Middle East whose smoke is filtered and cooled by a chamber of water

Etymology: The word names a water pipe, and its history begins with a coconut. In Persian, "nârgil" meant "coconut," and the bowl of the pipe was originally made from a coconut shell, which is why the name stuck to the device. The coconut word itself is probably older still, likely traceable to Sanskrit "nārikela," and the source for that Sanskrit term is thought to be a Dravidian language of southern India, where coconut palms grow. The name passed from Persian into Turkish as "nargile," and from Turkish into French as "narghilé," the form that gave English its version. The Persian-Turkish route explains why the pipe is so closely associated with Ottoman and Middle Eastern tobacco culture, even though the word's deepest roots lie in the coconut trade of South Asia. Spelling varies in English: "nargile," "narghile," and "nargily" all appear as alternatives for the same pipe.

Synonyms: hookah, narghile, nargileh