Definition of "baksheesh"

What an honour to think that I am to be elevated to the throne, and to bring the seat in Parliament as backsheesh to the sultan!

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Temptation”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1850, page 265

As we rode into Magdala not a soul was visible. But the ring of the horses' hoofs roused the stupid population, and they all came trooping out—old men and old women, boys and girls, the blind, the crazy, and the crippled, all in ragged, soiled and scanty raiment, and all abject beggars by nature, instinct and education. […] [O]ut of their infidel throats, with one accord, burst an agonizing and most infernal chorus: "Howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! bucksheesh! bucksheesh!" I never was in a storm like that before. As we paid the bucksheesh out to sore-eyed children and brown, buxom girls with repulsively tattooed lips and chins, we filed through the town […]

1869, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XLVIII, in The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company. […], pages 504–505

[…] the complex Oriental etiquette which under the name of “baksheesh” calls for lavish remuneration and bribes, rudely demanded but ever so graciously accepted by the natives in return for little or no services rendered.

1965, Leo Deuel, Testaments of Time: the Search for Lost Manuscripts and Records, New York, N.Y.: Knopf, page 367

We see the immense, massive granite sarcophagi which had contained the embalmed mummies of the worshipped animals, coming out of this labyrinth, we pay our backsheesh, remount our donkeys and return to the automobile.

1977, Joseph Krimsky, Pilgrimage & Service (America and the Holy Land), New York, N.Y.: Arno Press, pages 20–21

Baksheesh (lubrication payment) is often the accepted manner of doing business in the Middle and Far East. However, one must be careful not to confuse ethics with the law.

1985, Eugene R. Laczniak et al., edited by Gene R. Laczniak and Patrick E. Murphy, Marketing Ethics: Guidelines for Managers, Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, page 86

In the tomb of Ramses III, one side chamber has beautiful pictures showing musicians playing for the pharoah[sic] and his fellow gods. […] In yet another are poignant scenes of everyday life in Egypt. They don't show people demanding backsheesh but I suspect it happened back then because it seems bred into the local psyche. The guards in the tombs want payment for offering unnecessary directions, for handing out pieces of cardboard able to be used as fans – and for just being there.

2005 December 6, Jim Eagles, “Egypt: Smile on the Nile”, in The New Zealand Herald‎, Auckland: Wilson and Horton

When we had made the boys as comfortable as possible and given them fags, of which our Padre seemed to have an inexhaustable[sic] supply, they were quite cheerful, and joked about “backsheesh” wounds.

1981, The Kia Ora Coo-ee: The Magazine for the ANZACS in the Middle East, 1918

Clearly the preferred wound, it ranked in seriousness between a 'buckshee' or 'baksheesh', a slight would that merely took a man out of the line for a short time, and a 'N.Z. smack', which meant being invalided back to New Zealand, usually disabled for life.

2009, Gavin McLean, Penguin Book Of New Zealanders At War

Some prayed for what was known as a 'blighty' wound or a 'backsheesh' wound, a wound that would be bad enough to have them sent home but not so bad that it would cripple them.

2018, David Hastings, Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac