wallah: M-W's Word of the Day

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The Word of the Day for May 26 is:

wallah \WAH-luh\ noun
: a person who is associated with a particular work or who performs a specific duty or service -- usually used in combination

Example sentence:
"Location, location and location. That's what it's all about, trumpet the real-estate wallahs." (Tony Baker, _The Advertiser_, August 3, 2005)

Did you know?
"Wallah" comes from the Hindi suffix "-vala," meaning "one in charge." Like its Hindi counterpart, "wallah" is commonly used in combination with other nouns. The first use of "wallah" appeared as "lootywallah" in a narrative penned by Officer Innes Munro describing his time deployed on the Coromandel Coast of India in the 1780s. "Looty," or "lootie," was a noun sometimes applied to a member of a band of marauders or robbers. In the narrative, Munro used the term to describe looting cavalrymen. In current writing, "wallah" is typically accompanied by words like "office" or "marketing."

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