MONSOON in Hobson-Jobson

s. The name given to the periodical winds of the Indian seas, and of the seasons which they affect and characterize. The original word is the Ar. mausim, 'season,' which the Portuguese corrupted into moncao, and our people into monsoon. Dictionaries (except Dr. Badger's) do not apparently give the Arabic word mausim the technical sense of monsoon. But there can be no doubt that it had that sense among the Arab pilots from whom the Portuguese adopted the word. This is shown by the quotations from the Turkish Admiral Sidi 'Ali. "The rationale of the term is well put in the Beirut Mohit, which says: 'Mausim is used of anything that comes round but once a year, like the festivals. In Lebanon the mausim is the season of working with the silk,' -- which is the important season there, as the season of navigation is in Yemen." (W. R. S.)

The Spaniards in America would seem to have a word for season in analogous use for a recurring wind, as may be gathered from Tom Cringle.* The Venetian, Leonardo Ca' Masser (below) calls the monsoons li tempi. And the quotation from Garcia De Orta shows that in his time the Portuguese sometimes used the word for season without any apparent reference to the wind. Though moncao is general with the Portuguese writers of the 16th century, the historian Diogo de Couto always writes moucao, and it is possible that the n came in, as in some other cases, by a habitual misreading of the written u for n. Linschoten in Dutch (1596) has monssoyn and monssoen (p. 8; [Hak. Soc. i. 33]). It thus appears probable that we get our monsoon from the Dutch. The latter in modern times seem to have commonly adopted the French form mousson. [Prof. Skeat traces our monsoon from Ital. monsone.] We see below (Ces. Feder.) that Monsoon was used as synonymous with "the half year," and so it is still in S. India.

1505. -- "De qui passano el colfo de Colocut che sono leghe 800 de pacizo (? passeggio): aspettano li tempi che sono nel principio dell' Autuno, e con le cole fatte(?) passano." -- Leonardo di Ca' Masser, 26.

[1512. -- ". . . because the maucam for both the voyages is at one and the same time." -- Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 30.]

1553. -- ". . . and the more, because the voyage from that region of Malaca had to be made by the prevailing wind, which they call moncao, which was now near its end. If they should lose eight days they would have to wait at least three months for the return of the time to make the voyage."-<-> Barros, Dec. II. liv. ii. cap. iv.

"Don Ricardo began to fret and fidget most awfully -- 'Beginning of the seasons' -- why, we may not get away for a week, and all the ships will be kept back in their loading." -- Ed. 1863, p. 309.
[p. 578]

1554. -- "The principal winds are four, according to the Arabs, . . . but the pilots call them by names taken from the rising and setting of certain stars, and assign them certain limits within which they begin or attain their greatest strength, and cease. These winds, limited by space and time, are called Mausim." -- The Mohit, by Sidi 'Ali Kapudan, in J. As. Soc. Beng. iii. 548.

" "Be it known that the ancient masters of navigation have fixed the time of the monsoon (in orig. doubtless mausim), that is to say, the time of voyages at sea, according to the year of Yazdajird, and that the pilots of recent times follow their steps. . . ." (Much detail on the monsoons follows.) -- Ibid.

1563. -- "The season (moncao) for these (i.e. mangoes) in the earlier localities we have in April, but in the other later ones in May and June; and sometimes they come as a rodolho (as we call it in our own country) in October and November." -- Garcia, f. 134v.

1568. -- "Come s'arriua in vna citta la prima cosa si piglia vna casa a fitto, o per mesi o per anno, seconda che si disegna di starui, e nel Pegu e costume di pigliarla per Moson, cioe per sei mesi." -- Ces. Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 394.

1585-6. -- "But the other goods which come by sea have their fixed season, which here they call Monzao." -- Sassetti, in De Gubernatis, p. 204.

1599. -- "Ora nell anno 1599, essendo venuta la Mansone a proposito, si messero alla vela due navi Portoghesi, le quali eran venute dalla citta di Goa in Amacao (see MACAO)." -- Carletti, ii. 206.

c. 1610. -- "Ces Monssons ou Muessons sont vents qui changent pour l'Este ou pour l'Hyver de six mois en six mois." -- Pyrard de Laval, i. 199; see also ii. 110; [Hak. Soc. i. 280; in i. 257 Monsons; in ii. 175, 235, Muesons].

[1615. -- "I departed for Bantam having the time of the year and the opportunity of the Monethsone." -- Foster, Letters, iii. 268.

[ " "The Monthsone will else be spent." -- Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 36.]

1616. -- ". . . quos Lusitani patria voce Moncam indigetant." -- Jarric, i. 46.

" Sir T. Roe writes Monson.

1627. -- "Of Corea hee was also told that there are many bogges, for which cause they have Waggons with broad wheeles, to keepe them from sinking, and obseruing the Monson or season of the wind . . . they have sayles fitted to these waggons, and so make their Voyages on land." -- Purchas,Pilgrimage, 602.

1634.-
"Partio, vendo que o tempo em vao gastava,
E que a moncao di navegar passava."
Malaca, Conquistada, iv. 75.

1644. -- "The winds that blow at Diu from the commencement of the change of season in September are sea-breezes, blowing from time to time from the S., S.W., or N.W., with no certain Monsam wind, and at that time one can row across to Dio with great facility." -- Bocarro, MS.

c. 1665. -- ". . . and it would be true to say, that the sun advancing towards one Pole, causeth on that side two great regular currents, viz., that of the Sea, and that of the Air which maketh the Mounson-wind, as he causeth two opposite ones, when he returns towards the other Pole." -- Bernier, E.T. 139-40; [ed. Constable, 436; see also 109].

1673. -- "The northern Monsoons (if I may so say, being the name imposed by the first Observers, i.e. Motiones) lasting hither." -- Fryer, 10.

" "A constellation by the Portugals called Rabodel Elephanto (see ELEPHANTA, b.) known by the breaking up of the Munsoons, which is the last Flory this Season makes." -- Ibid. 48. He has also Mossoons or Monsoons, 46.

1690. -- "Two Mussouns are the Age of a Man." -- Bombay Proverb in Ovington's Voyage, 142.

[ " "Mussoans." See under ELE- PHANTA, b.]

1696. -- "We thought it most advisable to remain here, till the next Mossoon."-<-> Bowyear, in Dalrymple, i. 87.

1783. -- "From the Malay word moossin, which signifies season." -- Forrest, V. to Mergui, 95.

" "Their prey is lodged in England; and the cries of India are given to seas and winds, to be blown about, in every breaking up of the monsoon, over a remote and unhearing ocean." -- Burke's Speech on Fox's E.I. Bill, in Works, iii. 468.