sahab
Urdu/Hindi साहब / صاحب — "sir", "master" or "respected gentleman".
Definitions
Urdu/Hindi साहब / صاحب — "sir", "master" or "respected gentleman". Colonial-era origin: the British in India inherited the word from local Mughal-era usage where it was already a polite suffix and then redeployed it heavily in their own civil service ("the sahab is in his office"). Today still used in South Asian English as a respectful form of address, especially to bosses, officers, doctors and senior strangers; the feminine "memsahib" is its counterpart. Often appended to surnames the way ji is ("Khan-sahab"). Carries faint colonial baggage but remains widespread, particularly in older registers and government / military contexts.
Sahab is in a meeting right now, please wait in the reception for fifteen minutes.
Comments
Have a better definition?
Add your own interpretation of "sahab".
🗺️About Regional & Other slang
Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
See all Regional & Other slang on Slangora.
Other words near "sahab" (S)
Browse all slang words starting with S.
Related terms
Semantically related
- sahibji76%
An Indian honorific — sahib elevated with the respectful suffix -ji, making it doubly deferential. Sahib itself was the colonial-era term for a European or upper-class master; sahibji adds the distinctly South Asian layer of personalised respect that -ji carries. Today it might be used ironically to address someone putting on airs, or genuinely to show deference to an older or senior person in formal settings.
- sahibji71%
(India) sahib (as a respectful term of address).
- sahibah70%
(India, archaic) A lady; a mistress; a female superior (used as a term of respect).
- memsahib67%
(India, historical, as a respectful term of address) A white European woman in colonial India.
- lat sahib65%
(India, obsolete) sahib.