I believe that the American word loafer owes something to this Gipsy root, as well as to the German laufer (landlaufer), and Mexican Spanish galeofar, and for this reason, that when the term first began to be popular in 1834 or 1835, I can distinctly remember that it meant to pilfer.  Such, at least, is my earliest recollection, and of hearing school boys ask one another in jest, of their acquisitions or gifts, “Where did you loaf that from?” A petty pilferer was a loafer, but in a very short time all of the tribe of loungers in the sun, and disreputable pickers up of unconsidered trifles, now known as bummers, were called loafers.  On this point my memory is positive, and I call attention to it, since the word in question has been the subject of much conjecture in America.

It is a very curious fact, that while the word loot is unquestionably Anglo-Indian, and only a recent importation into our English “slanguage,” it has always been at the same time English-Gipsy, although it never rose to the surface.

MAUNDER, to stroll about and beg, has been derived from Mand, the Anglo-Saxon for a basket, but is quite as likely to have come from Maunder, the Gipsy for “to beg.”  Mumper, a beggar, is also from the same source.

MOKE, a donkey, is said to be Gipsy, by Mr Hotten, but Gipsies themselves do not use the word, nor does it belong to their usual language.  The proper Rommany word for an ass is myla.

PARNY, a vulgar word for rain, is supposed to have come into England from the “Anglo-Indian” source, but it is more likely that it was derived from the Gipsy panni or water.  “Brandy pawnee” is undoubtedly an Anglo-Indian word, but it is used by a very different class of people from those who know the meaning of Parny.

POSH, which has found its way into vulgar popularity, as a term for small coins, and sometimes for money in general, is the diminutive of the Gipsy word pashero or poshero, a half-penny, from pash a half, and haura or harra, a penny.

QUEER, meaning across, cross, contradictory, or bad, is “supposed” to be the German word quer, introduced by the Gipsies.  In their own language atut means across or against, though to curry (German and Turkish Gipsy kurava), has some of the slang meaning attributed to queer.  An English rogue will say, “to shove the queer,” meaning to pass counterfeit money, while the Gipsy term would be to chiv wafri lovvo, or lovey.

“RAGLAN, a married woman, originally Gipsy, but now a term with English tramps” (The Slang Dictionary, London 1865).  In Gipsy, raklo is a youth or boy, and rakli, a girl; Arabic, ragol, a man.  I am informed, on good authority, that these words are known in India, though I cannot find them in dictionaries.  They are possibly transposed from Lurka a youth and lurki a girl, such transpositions being common among the lowest classes in India.