Anglo-Ind. Forms: 7 sanasse, 8 saniasi, sanashy, sinnasse, sinassie, senassie, sunniassy, -asse, 9 senassea, sunyasee, -as(s)i, sunnyas(s)ee, -asi. [a. Urdū, Hindī sannyāsī, = Skr. saṃnyāsin laying aside, abandoning, ascetic, f. saṃ together + ni down + as to throw.] A Brahman in the fourth stage of his life; a wandering fakir or religious mendicant. Also attrib.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, V. ix. 417. Some [Bramenes] wander from place to place begging: Some (an vnlearned kinde) are called Sanasses.
1766. J. Rennell, MS. Let., 30 Aug. (Y.). The Sanashy Faquirs (part of the same Tribe which plundered Dacca in Cossim Ally’s Time).
1773. W. Hastings, Lett., 2 Feb., in Gleig, Life (1841), I. 282. You will hear of great disturbances committed by the Sinassies, or wandering Fackeers.
1777. Stewart, in Phil. Trans., LXVII. 483. This Indian … must have travelled as a Faquier or Sunniassy through Bengal into Thibet.
1839. Lett. fr. Madras, xxiii. (1843), 244. A Sunnyassee, or Hindoo devotee, came to pray in the middle of the river.
1885. G. S. Forbes, Wild Life in Canara, 88. A Hindoo sunyási, or hermit, lived in a cave under the overhanging rock.
