Also -hi. [Urdū (Hindī) koī hai ‘is (hai) any one (koī) there?’ a call used in India to summon a servant.] An Anglo-Indian, esp. one belonging to the Bengal Presidency.
1816. ‘Quiz’ (title), The Grand Master, or Adventures of Qui Hi in Hindostan.
1822. Blackwood’s Mag., Aug., 133. So if you are neither a qu, hy [sic] nor a politician [etc.].
1834. Medwin, Angler in Wales, I. 7. An apparition … not unusual at that refuge for Indians, a ‘qui hi.’
1864. Trevelyan, Compet. Wallah (1866), 170. Old Quihyes, with clogged livers and shattered nerves.
attrib. 1840. E. E. Napier, Scenes & Sports For. Lands, II. iv. 91. I sent to my Qui Hi friend an Arab pony.
