The Tamil slang for something free of charge, oasi, is derived from the abbreviation, OC, which expands to On Company's Service. The company in question was the British East India Company which stamped its official mail with these letters to avoid having to pay postage.
The name of the Anaconda, one of the most impressive snakes in the world, is said have its origins in Tamil where Anaikondran translates to something along the lines of elephant killer.
The Sanskrit word guru (गुरु) and the English word, grave, are both said to descend from the same Proto-Indo-European base, *gru-, meaning heavy or weighty.
The word stepney is still used to refer to a spare tyre only in our part of the world. Stepneys are named after a street of the same name in Llanelli, Wales where they were manufactured in the early 1900s.
