Definition of "purdah" [pur•dah]

• A curtain or screen, used mainly in India to keep women separate from men or strangers. (noun)
• The Hindu or Muslim system of sex segregation, practiced especially by keeping women in seclusion. (noun)
• Social seclusion: "Never have artists been more separate: their inordinate fame, wealth, drug use have driven them into luxurious purdah” ( D. Keith Mano). (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.

• "The origin of the term purdah is: "Purdah or Pardaa Persian: پرده, Urdu: پردہ, Hindi: पर्दा, literally meaning "curtain" is the practice of preventing men from seeing women."
• "The reason for his decision to end his almost four-decade-long state of purdah is that he wants to lend his support to a new collection of his work, 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective."
• "She has been brought up somewhat on Western principles; has kept but casual purdah; is unbetrothed at eighteen; nor would any orthodox prince marry her."