نوکر

Borrowed from Middle Mongol ᠨᠥᠬᠦᠷ (nökür). The pronunciation as /näwkär/ is mediated through Classical Persian نَوْکَر (nawkar) instead.

نوکر • (nwkr /nökär/ or nwkr /näwkär/) (plural نوکر‌لار (nökärlär))

1. servant, domestic, attendant
2. friend, companion

• Uyghur: نەۋكەر (newker)
• Uzbek:

  Latin script: navkar

  Afghan Uzbek: نَوْکَر (navkar)

• el-Buhari, Süleyman Özbeki (1881), “نوکر”, in لغت چغتای و ترکی عثمانی [Ottoman Turkish-Chagatai Dictionary]‎^[1] (in Ottoman Turkish), volume 1, page 283
• Vámbery, Ármin (1867), “نوکر”, in Ćagataische sprachstudien‎^[2] (in German), Leipzig, F. A. Brockhaus, page 342
• Courteille, Abel Pavet de (1870), “نوکر”, in Dictionnaire turk-oriental [Eastern Turkic Dictionary]‎^[3] (in French), Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, page 510

Via some Turkic source, compare Azerbaijani nökər (“servant”), Uzbek navkar. Ultimately of Mongolic origin, compare Modern Mongolian нөхөр (nöxör, “friend”), from Proto-Mongolic *nökör (“friend”).

The meaning of “servant” is owing to a semantic shift that happened in Turkic words borrowed from Mongolic; the Persian word was loaned from one of such Turkic words with the altered meaning.

نوکر • (nawkar / nowkar) (plural نوکرها (nawkar-hā / nowkar-hâ), Tajik spelling навкар)

1. servant, domestic, attendant

• → Bengali: নওকর (noōkor)
• → Gujarati: નોકર (nokar)
• → Hindi: नौकर (naukar)

• Dehkhoda, Ali-Akbar (1931–), “نوکر”, in Dehkhoda Dictionary Institute, editors, Dehkhoda Dictionary (in Persian), Tehran: University of Tehran Press

Borrowed from Classical Persian نوکر (nawkar).

نوکر • (naukar) m (Gurmukhi spelling ਨੌਕਰ)

1. servant (clarification of this definition is needed)
2. employee (clarification of this definition is needed)

• نوکری (naukarī)

Borrowed from Classical Persian نوکر (nawkar).

• (Standard Urdu) IPA^(key): /nɔː.kəɾ/
• Rhymes: -əɾ

نَوکَر • (naukar) m or f (Hindi spelling नौकर)

1. servant, domestic, attendant
2. employee

• خادِم (xādim)
• مُلازِم (mulāzim)

• نَوکْری (naukrī), نَوکَری (naukarī)

• نَوکْرانی (naukrānī), نَوکَرانی (naukarānī)

From Urdu نوکر (naukar).

نوکر (naukar)

1. servant, attendant, waiter
2. employee