Anglo-Ind. Forms: 7 seis, 7–8 seise, 7–9 sais, 8 scise, 9 sayse, sāees, saice, sice, syce. [Hind. = Arab, sā’is 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.
