dacoit means A bandit or armed robber, especially in former parts of British India. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 86 out of 100.
dacoit is pronounced /dəˈkɔɪt/.
Why “dacoit” is a great word
DACOIT — [Noun] An armed robber operating as part of an organized gang, historically preying upon travelers and settlements in the rural terrain of the Indian subcontinent. Borrowed from Hindustani ڈکیت / डकैत (ḍakait), from ڈاکا / डाका (ḍākā, "gang robbery"). First recorded in English 1800–10. Unlike "bandit," a generic term for a solitary or opportunistic outlaw, or "thug," which now denotes a mere ruffian, "dacoit" specifies a collective, systemic profession of plunder. It evokes the sudden silhouette of horsemen on a moonlit pass, the glint of a tulwar from a dense thicket, the shared loot counted in a hillside cave—the old, localized terror of order dissolving into a grim, alternative economy.
noun
- A bandit or armed robber, especially in former parts of British India.“1893, Bithia Mary Croker, "The Dâk Bungalow at Dakor" in "To Let" etc., Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1906, p. 118, https://archive.org/details/toletcroker00crok
[…] she had harangued us on the subject of fever and cholera and bad water, had warned us solemnly against dacoits, and now she was hinting at ghosts.”
verb
- To commit armed robbery.