Definition of "lascar"

A motley crowd saunters along the streets — Lascars off a P. and O., blond Northmen from a Swedish barque, Japanese from a man-of-war, English sailors, Spaniards, pleasant-looking fellows from a French cruiser, negroes off an American tramp.

1919, W. Somerset Maugham, “chapter 47”, in The Moon and Sixpence

...and what foreigner is it, exactly, that Pirate has in mind if it isn't that stateless lascar across his own mirror-glass, that poorest of exiles...

1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

As for the voyage itself, his account of Mauritius, where the ship stopped, saw the appearance of Muslim lascars.

2020, Sujit Sivasundaram, Waves Across the South, William Collins, published 2021, page 35