Also 8 swamme, swammy, sawmy, 9 swamee, swamy, sammy. [a. Hindī swāmī master, lord, prince, used by Hindus as a term of respectful address, a. Skr. svāmin in same senses, also the idol or temple of a god.]
1. A Hindu idol.
1773. E. Ives, Voy. India, 70. Towards the upper end, there is a dark repository, where they keep their Swamme, that is their chief god.
1794. Indian Observer, 167 (Y.). The gold might for us as well have been worshipped in the shape of a Sawmy at Juggernaut.
1799. Wellington, in Gurw., Desp. (1837), I. 56. Some brass Swammies which were in the toshekanah were given to the brahmins of different pagodas.
1837. Lett. fr. Madras, viii. (1843), 64. They adimre our dolls so much, that they are almost ready to make Swamies of them.
1884. Sunday at Home, June, 397/1. A fourth [hut], the most pretentious and the best built, was consecrated to the swamie, or god.
2. A title for a Hindu religious teacher.
1901. Daily News, 2 Dec., 5/1. She was informed that the word Swami meant teacher.
1905. United Free Ch. Mag., Feb. 9/2. A distinguished Swami or religious teacher visited Poona lately.
3. attrib. swamy-house, an idol temple or shrine; swamy-pagoda, ‘a coin formerly current at Madras; probably so-called from the figure of an idol on it’ (Y.).
1778. R. Orme, Hist. Milit. Trans. Indostan, X. II. 443. Until they came in a line with the flank fire of the field-pieces at the swamy house.
1837. Lett. fr. Madras (1843), 134. In the middle of the court, round which these galleries of pillars ran, was the Swamy-house, or place in which the idol is enshrined.
1857. H. Greathed, Lett. Siege of Delhi (1858), 112. We met Wilby at the advanced post, the ‘Sammy House.’
1813. Milburn, Oriental Comm., xix. (1825), 233. The old 3 Swamy pagoda, which is about 202/3 carats fine.
b. Applied to jewellery ornamented with figures of Hindu deities.
1880. Birdwood, Industr. Arts India, I. 152. In the characteristic swami work of the Madras Presidency the ornamentation consists of figures of the Puranic gods in high relief.
1882. Mrs. B. M. Croker, Proper Pride, I. iv. 69. My gold swami earrings.
1903. Yule & Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, Swamy Jewelry, a kind of gold and silver jewelry, made chiefly at Trichinopoly, in European shapes covered with grotesque mythological figures.
