Definition of "havildar"

havildar

/ˈhavɪldɑː/

noun
plural havildars
1. (South Asia) An noncommissioned officer rank in parts of India, later a specific military rank of the British Indian Army and of the modern armies of India and Pakistan, equivalent to sergeant.
  Quotations
  ‘There was a great fight,’ said the Havildar, ‘and of us no man escaped unhurt.’
  1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘At Howli Thana’, Black and White, Folio Society, published 2005, page 388
  On being congratulated by the Russian, the Gurkha havildar, or sergeant, whispered anxiously to Younghusband that he should inform the towering Gromchevsky that they were unusually small and that most Gurkhas were even taller than he was.
  1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 406