Also zilla. [Hind. ḍilah side, part, district, division.] An administrative district in British India.
1800. Asiat. Ann. Reg., Char., 24. Within the zilla, or district of Calcutta.
1810. T. Williamson, E. Ind. Vade Mecum, II. 493. In each of the zillahs, or districts, only a collector, with an assistant, perhaps, was stationed.
1869. Jrnl. Agric. Soc. India, I. 398, title. Native process of extracting the oil from the nut of the Bhaylah or Bhaylonah, Semecarpus anacardium, as practised in the The Zillah of Huzareebag.
attrib. 1814. Heyne, Tracts on India, 323. Punishments … executed … by the Zillah judge.
1845. Stocqueler, Handbk. Brit. India (1854), 340. Ahmedabad, 300 miles from Bombay, is a zillah station.
Hence Zilladar, the collector of a zillah.
1785. Asiatic Misc., I. 409. The riots paid their revenues to the Ziladars in the produce of the lands.
