mali

Meaning

Noun

• A member of a caste in South Asia whose traditional occupation is gardening; hence, any South Asian gardener.
• Money, cash.

Origin

• Borrowed from Hindi माली, from Sanskrit माली, मालिन्, from माला.
• Borrowed from Xhosa imali, Zulu imali, both ultimately from Swahili mali, from Arabic مَال. Some dictionaries suggest an origin in English money instead, making no attempt to account for the distribution of the loanword nor the proposed shift from to , both of which make this unlikely.
• Borrowed from Latin malī, a plural form of malus (probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mel-).