Anglo-Ind. Forms: 7 seis, 78 seise, 79 sais, 8 scise, 9 sayse, sāees, saice, sice, syce. [Hind. = Arab, sāis f. sūs to tend a horse.] A servant who attends to horses, a groom; also, an attendant who follows on foot a mounted horseman or a carriage.
1653. Greaves, Seraglio, 141. The Master of the horse hath the charge of all his other horses, mules, camels, and all his cattle having many ordinary grooms which are to look to them, and see that the Seises keep them in good case.
1675. Covel, in Early Voy. Levant (Hakluyt Soc.), 172. I had my servant, and a seis or groom, to look after my horse.
1779. in H. E. Busteed, Echoes Old Calcutta (1882), 230. The bearer and scise came to the place where I was.
1815. Mrs. Sherwood, in Life, xxvi. (1847), 437. The Sais, or horse-attendant, took charge of my horse.
1825. T. Hook, Sayings, Ser. II. Passion & Princ., iii. The gallant aide-de-camp mounted his little Arabian, and followed by his sice at full speed, galloped away to head-quarters.
1832. Marryat, N. Forster, xxxviii. Syces were fanning the horses with their chowries.
1854. Thackeray, Newcomes, lxvi. The Course is at Calcutta he calls his grooms saices!
1896. H. S. Merriman, Flotsam, xxii. 254. The carriages rolled up to the cathedral doors, and the syces cried frantically to the throng to make room.