"Choora" is a specific word for a type of Afghan military
knife, from the region around the Khyber Pass, meant to
pierce mail armor; it's single-edged, sharply tapered, and
has a reinforced spine.
I don't have any idea of what "gaon" might mean in Hin-
di; but I wonder if it mightn't have suggested itself to
Wolfe through the association with the Hebrew word
"gaon", genius (in the sense of a remarkable intellect, not
spirit, as in the Latin genius loci). The word is proba-
bly best known to English-speakers as the epithet of
the eighteenth-century Rabbi Eliyahu (Elijah ben Solomon
Zalman) of Vilnius, who was known as the Vilna Gaon.
Nacre
13 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
At 06:10 AM 12/3/2001 -0800, alga wrote:
Eule wrote:
Hindu----not so sure about the
accuracy but fwiw:
choora - four (the Rajan's knife)
I can count to ten in Hindi--though I need
a jog to get started. Choora is not four.
[snip]
gaon - knowledge understanding knowing
[snip]
-alga