Syce

 

Syce

This puzzle provides 26 potential words. Each word must have at least 4 letters in it, and must include the central letter, in this case 'Y'.

I work on a Polygon puzzle each morning and when I have exhausted my vocabulary, I look at the solution. Sometimes, the words are so obvious that I wonder how I’ve managed to be blind to them. At many other times, unknown words crop up and ‘syce’ is one that appeared recently.

A syce holding two carriage horses

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

It is pronounced as spelt, and is an archaic Urdu term for a groom. A syce was a servant, notably in India, during British colonial rule in the seventeenth century, whose responsibilities included feeding, grooming, and saddling horses, and driving carriages. It was in use before the advent of the car, at a time when horse transport was common.

When cars later became more available, syce developed to mean chauffeur, a driver of the ‘horseless carriage.’

April A to Z blogging challenge Khaki

This challenge is inspired and initiated by Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out. The objective is to  post every day in April, apart from Sundays, using the alphabet sequentially.


Khaki is an Urdu word for dusty. It derives from the Persian ‘khak’ meaning dust.

It was first used for military uniform by a British corps of Guides during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. They were known as ‘The Mudlarks’.