East Ind. [f. prec. + -dār, Pers. agential suffix.] The holder of a taluk or hereditary estate, or the officer who has charge of the district so called. Hence Talukdārī, -daree (talookdarry), the office or position of a talukdār.
1798. Wellesley, in Owen, Desp. (1877), 170. Orders shall … be issued to all talookdars on the frontiers.
1801. R. Patton, Asiat. Mon., 116. By acquiring a larger extent of the same species of hereditary possession, they became what are called talookdars. Ibid., 147. A grant of talookdarry of thirty-eight villages ‘which lay contiguous to their factory in Bengal.’
1893. Nation (N.Y.), 27 July, 70/2. The ‘landlords’ (or ‘talookdars,’ as they were called in that district).
1904. Times, 5 Oct., 8/6. Proposals respecting the education and training of the Oudh taluqdars put forward by Raja Ali Mahomed.
