A boatman or oarsman who operates a caique; a Mediterranean sailor or ferryman, particularly in Ottoman-era Turkish or Greek contexts.
From caique plus the occupational suffix '-jee' (also '-ji'), a Persian/Turkish suffix meaning 'one who does' or 'one who operates'. This compound term reflects the multilingual maritime world of the Ottoman Empire.
The '-jee' suffix shows how English borrowed job titles from Turkish and Persian—words like 'bailee' and 'caiquejee' reveal how maritime traders needed vocabulary for every specialist role they encountered!
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