# baksheesh
## English
### Alternative forms

* bachshish, bakshee, backsheesh, backshish, backsishe, bacsheese (obsolete), bacshish, bakhshish, bakhshîsh, bucksheesh, buckshish, buksheesh, bukshish, buxees (archaic), buxies (archaic), buxie

### Etymology

From Turkish bahşiş, from Persian بخشیش (baxšiš, “present; an honorary or pecuniary gratuity; drink-money”) or بخشش (baxšeš), from بخشیدن (baxšidan, “to give, grant, bestow”). Doublet of phage.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /bækˈʃiːʃ/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -iːʃ
* Hyphenation: bak‧sheesh

### Noun

baksheesh (usually uncountable, plural baksheeshes)
* In the Middle East or southwest Asia: a bribe or tip.
    Synonyms: grease payment, lubrication payment
** 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Temptation”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 265:What an honour to think that I am to be elevated to the throne, and to bring the seat in Parliament as backsheesh to the sultan!
** 1869, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XLVIII, in The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company. […], →OCLC, pages 504–505:As we rode into Magdala not a soul was visible. But the ring of the horses' hoofs roused the stupid population, and they all came trooping out—old men and old women, boys and girls, the blind, the crazy, and the crippled, all in ragged, soiled and scanty raiment, and all abject beggars by nature, instinct and education. […] [O]ut of their infidel throats, with one accord, burst an agonizing and most infernal chorus: "Howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! bucksheesh! bucksheesh!" I never was in a storm like that before. As we paid the bucksheesh out to sore-eyed children and brown, buxom girls with repulsively tattooed lips and chins, we filed through the town […]
** 1965, Leo Deuel, Testaments of Time: the Search for Lost Manuscripts and Records, New York, N.Y.: Knopf, →OCLC, page 367:[…] the complex Oriental etiquette which under the name of “baksheesh” calls for lavish remuneration and bribes, rudely demanded but ever so graciously accepted by the natives in return for little or no services rendered.
** 1977, Joseph Krimsky, Pilgrimage & Service (America and the Holy Land), New York, N.Y.: Arno Press, →ISBN, pages 20–21:We see the immense, massive granite sarcophagi which had contained the embalmed mummies of the worshipped animals, coming out of this labyrinth, we pay our backsheesh, remount our donkeys and return to the automobile.
** 1985, Eugene R. Laczniak et al., edited by Gene R. Laczniak and Patrick E. Murphy, Marketing Ethics: Guidelines for Managers, Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 86:Baksheesh (lubrication payment) is often the accepted manner of doing business in the Middle and Far East. However, one must be careful not to confuse ethics with the law.
** 2005 December 6, Jim Eagles, “Egypt: Smile on the Nile”, in The New Zealand Herald‎, Auckland: Wilson and Horton, →ISSN:In the tomb of Ramses III, one side chamber has beautiful pictures showing musicians playing for the pharoah and his fellow gods. […] In yet another are poignant scenes of everyday life in Egypt. They don't show people demanding backsheesh but I suspect it happened back then because it seems bred into the local psyche. The guards in the tombs want payment for offering unnecessary directions, for handing out pieces of cardboard able to be used as fans – and for just being there.
* (military slang) A minor wound that is severe enough to get a soldier sent away from the front.
    Synonyms: buckshee, Blighty one
** 1981, The Kia Ora Coo-ee: The Magazine for the ANZACS in the Middle East, 1918, →ISBN:When we had made the boys as comfortable as possible and given them fags, of which our Padre seemed to have an inexhaustable supply, they were quite cheerful, and joked about “backsheesh” wounds.
** 2009, Gavin McLean, Penguin Book Of New Zealanders At War, →ISBN:Clearly the preferred wound, it ranked in seriousness between a 'buckshee' or 'baksheesh', a slight would that merely took a man out of the line for a short time, and a 'N.Z. smack', which meant being invalided back to New Zealand, usually disabled for life.
** 2018, David Hastings, Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac, →ISBN:Some prayed for what was known as a 'blighty' wound or a 'backsheesh' wound, a wound that would be bad enough to have them sent home but not so bad that it would cripple them.

#### Derived terms

* bamboo baksheesh

#### Translations
### Verb

baksheesh (third-person singular simple present baksheeshes, present participle baksheeshing, simple past and past participle baksheeshed)
* To bribe with a baksheesh.

### Further reading

* “baksheesh”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
* baksheesh, bachshish, backsheesh, backshish, bacshish, bakhshish, bucksheesh, buckshish, bukshish at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.

## Portuguese
### Noun

baksheesh m (uncountable)
* (rare) baksheesh (bribe or tip paid to speed up services in the Middle East and SW Asia)