kuli.
laborer; coolie
Meaning & usage
laborer; coolie
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Malay kuli, from Hindi क़ुली (qulī), from Chagatai قلی (quli, “servant, slave”), ultimately from Proto-Turkic *kul (“slave, servant”). Other forms occur in Bengali কুলি (kuli) and Tamil கூலி (kūli, “daily hire”), which are possibly also influenced by Hindi कोली (kolī, “weaver; low-class”). The Chinese word 苦力 (kǔlì), meaning "to exert one's abilities; heavy labour work" in Classical Chinese, may have been influenced by cognates of the above Hindi word in other languages and may have further influenced English.
Try it on your idea.
kuli has 4 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.