Plural of effendi; Turkish titles or ranks of authority, particularly for officials, gentlemen, or men of education in the Ottoman Empire.
Plural form of 'effendi,' from Ottoman Turkish 'efendi.' This form entered English through colonial administrative texts and travel writing in the 17th-19th centuries. The plural follows English pluralization conventions rather than Turkish.
Colonial English texts use 'effendis' constantly when describing Ottoman officials, but the casual attitude toward pluralizing foreign words shows how English just absorbed Ottoman vocabulary without worrying much about respecting the original language's grammar.
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