Meaning of bashi-bazoukery | Babel Free

Definitions

Extreme physical violence; brutality; cruelty.

uncountable

Examples

“[…] I knew well the self-important back-patting, the servile admiration, the ambiguous analyses, the petty praise⟳, and the pettier intellectual bashi-bazoukery --'”

“Late though the hour, there were quite enough people about to exaggerate the incident into fifty different versions and turn⟳ it into as bloodthirsty a piece of bashi-bazoukery as had ever thrilled Sirene.”

“Bashi-bazoukery was rampant in the area of Urfa and Ulysses was bastinadoed mercilessly.”

“His government was a system of Bashi-Bazoukery plus slave-raiding, with this difference, that in Sarawak, unlike the Soudan, the slave-raids were undertaken by the orders and under the direction of the Sultans or Rajahs of Brunei. […] Sarawak became independent, the Bashi-Bazoukery from Brunei ceased to trouble⟳ the tribes, and the homes of the villagers were no longer laid desolate in order⟳ to supply⟳ victims for the Sultan's pleasure.”

“Its only redeeming feature was that it prevented internecine wars; and when occasionally a good governor-general was appointed, the Bashi-Bazoukery was reduced to a minimum, and the force⟳ of the Egyptian Government was exerted for the repression of the slave-trade, which is the staple industry of the Soudan.”

“What a change⟳ for them, from the régime of Bashi-Bazoukery, of the pachas, of the stick⟳, the lash, the prison; from the grinding taxation and the denial of even a form⟳ of justice!”

“He would not hurt⟳ a fly⟳, and though he has shown himself very bellicose of late, and has with outstretched hand fiercely denounced Turkey and all its works, it is probable that if a Bashi-Bazouk were to stray within the paddock of Massey Hall, Peter would take⟳ him in and feed⟳ him, provide⟳ him with a short pipe, and do nothing worse to him than explain⟳ how he saved fourteen-pence on the Civil Service Estimates, and hint that if the Bashi-Bazoukery ever wants a financial regenerator, à la Goschen in Egypt, a letter addressed to Massey Hall, Cheshire, would reach⟳ the proper hands.”

“Yet in truth there is scarcely any contemporary Bashi-Bazoukery on Bulgarian soil.”

CEFR level