avania
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Uncertain; common in many Levant languages (compare Italian avania, Portuguese avania, French avanie, Arabic اواني), but the direction of borrowings is unclear.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
avania (plural avanias)
- (historical) A tax or fee imposed on foreigners under the Ottoman Empire, especially one considered to be irregular or extortionate.
- 1794, Alex Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo, 2nd edition, page 330:
- The merchants are considered as more immediately under the protection of the Mohassil, and therefore not so subject to the Avanias made by the Bashaw.
- 1846, Julia Pardoe, Miss Pardoe's Complete Works, page 55:
- “Khoja,” said the pasha, slowly, removing the chibouque from his mouth, and looking towards the secretary; “write that Yacob the Jew shall, before sunset, pay an avania to the pasha of one hundred piastres, for selling dhourra within the walls of the city, without authority—now Hebrew, once more we listen.”
- 1935, Alfred C Wood, A History of the Levant Company, page 63:
- Ten years later, as they told their ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Thomas Bendysh, they were still loth to meddle in those ‘barbarous places’ because of the ever-present hazard of avanias.
- 2000, Merlijn Olnon, ‘Towards Classifying Avanias’, Friend and Rivals in the East, page 162:
- The Europeans often felt that these practices went against the capitulations, and considered them extortions – which they called avanias.