Anglo-Ind. Also conji. [ad. Tamil kanji; in Telugu and Canarese ganji, Malayālam kaṇṇi, Urdu ganji: of doubtful origin; ‘not Dravidian’ (G. U. Pope). The Eng. form may have been taken through the Portuguese; Garcia 1563 has canje; candgie, canji, cangia are early representations in other European langs.]
The water in which rice has been boiled: used as an article of diet for invalids, and as starch.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India, IV. vi. 200. They have … a great Stone, on which they beat their Cloaths till clean: and if for family-use, starch them with Congee.
1789. Saunders, Boutan & Thibet, in Phil. Trans., LXXIX. 101. The patient is nourished with congee and other liquids.
1800. J. R. Forster, trans. Paolino’s Voy., 70 (Y.). Cagni, boiled rice water, which the Europeans call Cangi.
1831. Capt. Trelawny, Adv. Younger Son, I. 290. You must not eat! I have ordered the boy to make you some congee.
1833. A. T. Christie, Epid. Cholera, 35, note. This [i.e., the resemblance of bowel evacuations to rice-water in cholera patients] has given rise to the vulgar term for the secretion in India, viz. ‘Conjee-evacuations.’
1869. E. A. Parkes, Pract. Hygiene (ed. 3), 227. The rice (or conjee) water contains some albuminous matter.
b. Conjee-house: a military ‘lock-up’; ‘so called from the traditionary regimen of the inmates’ (Yule).
1835. Sir C. Napier, in Mawson, Records (1851), 101, note (Y.). All men confined for drunkenness should, if possible, be confined by themselves in the Congee-House, till sober.
1859. Dickens, Haunted Ho., III. 18. They sent me to … a ‘congee house,’ where I was fed principally on rice-water.
