Anglo-Indian. Short for CHITTY.
1785. in Seton-Karr, Select. fr. Calcutta Gaz., I. 114 (Y.). [They] may know his terms by sending a chit.
1794. H. Boyd, Ind. Observer, 147 (Y.). The petty but constant and universal manufacture of chits which prevails here.
1845. Stocqueler, Handbk. Brit. India (1854), 109. The apparently time-wasting system … which we shall denominate the Chit-system.
a. 1847. Mrs. Sherwood, Lady of Manor, III. xxi. 294. The chit was found on Miss Crawford’s dressing-table; a chit which nobody wrote, but which every body read.
1871. Athenæum, 2 Sept., 296. In India the practice of writing chits, i.e. notes, on the smallest provocation has always been carried to excess.
1879. E. S. Bridges, Round the World in 6 Months, 97. Everything [in Hong Kong] is done by what is called chits.
