howdah

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a seat or enclosed platform, often canopied and ornamented, carried on the back of an elephant or camel

   The guide secured the howdah before the passengers climbed onto the elephant.

Borrowed from Hindi and Urdu hauda, from Arabic hawdaj ("a litter carried by a camel"). English travelers adopted the word in the eighteenth century for the passenger seat mounted on an elephant or camel.

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