Definition of "sahib" [‖Sa•hib]

• Used formerly as a form of respectful address for a European man in colonial India. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It’s March 2005, and I’m just the 75th sap — or “foreigner,” in Mizo (from the colonial Hindi term sahib) — so far this year, and one of the few sap journalists to have shown an interest in the bamboo flowering, or in anything at all in Mizoram."
• "There were some, as it happened, who ventured to cross swords with him, but the result taught them that this stern-faced, black-bearded giant of a sahib was their master every whit as much as was Edwardes."
• "I perceived within myself, saying, "He is disturbed, and listens to my advice with impatience;" and, having called the sahib diwan, or lord high treasurer, in virtue of a former intimacy that subsisted between us, I stated his case and spoke so fully upon his skill and merits, that he put him in nomination for a trifling office."