sowar

From Hindi/Urdu सवार (savār)/سوار (savār), from Classical Persian سوار (sawār, “horseman”).

sowar (plural sowars)

1. (historical, India) A soldier on horseback, especially one during the British Raj.
   • 1887, Thomas Stevens, chapter XII, in Around the World on a Bicycle‎, Vol. II: From Teheran to Yokohama, London: Sampson Low […] :

     I have been laboring under the impression that, for soul-harrowing vocal effort, the wild-eyed sowars of Khorassan, as exemplified in my escort from Beerjand, were entitled to the worst execrations of a discriminating Ferenghi, but the Afghans can go them one better.

   • 1897, Frederick Sleigh Roberts, Forty-one years in India‎:

     Among the latter was Hope Grant, who had his horse shot under him in a charge, and was saved by the devotion of two men of his own regiment (the 9th Lancers) and a Mahomedan sowar of the 4th Irregular Cavalry.

   • 1910, Charles John Griffiths, A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi‎:

     Hills was struck down badly wounded, and was on the point of being despatched by a sowar, when Major Tombs, hearing the noise, rushed out of his tent, and seeing the plight his subaltern was in, fired his revolver at thirty yards and killed the sowar.

• suwar

• sowarree

sowar

1. horn (clarification of this definition is needed)