Word Origin | çetrefil, madrabaz

Kvachi is... an international con-man, through whose eyes we see Europe and Russia as nothing but a rogue's hunting ground.... The abrupt, sardonic prose brims over with inventiveness.--Donald Rayfield "The Literature of Georgia." This sprawling picaresque novel of the life of Georgian Kvachi Kvachantiradze is a romp through the early history of the 20th century in Georgia, Russia and further afield. Kvachi is a con-man and cheat, gambler and womaniser, friend of the great and not so great, including Rasputin and the Tsar, and he lies and deceives his way through all the major events of his times ending in Istanbul as a jogolo. Mikheil Javakhishvili was born in 1880, and died in 1937. He is considered one of the primary architects of modern Georgian literature, bringing the inventiveness of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French writing into his country. He work ran afoul of Soviet authorities, however, and he was executed during Stalin's Great Purge, and his work was banned for twenty years.

Mavi Boncuk |

çetrefil:  complicated, intricate, tortuous adj.[1]  "Balkan şivesi" [ Ahmed Vefik Paşa, Lehce-ı Osmani, 1876]
çetrefil: Çatakların ve sair berberenin çatra patra lisanı
"genel olarak bozuk şive" [ Şemseddin Sami, Kamus-ı Türki, 1900]
çetrefil: Rumeli halkının ve Çerkeslerin söyledikleri gibi Türkçeyi yanlış ve bozuk şive ile söyleme.

"... anlaşılması güç, karmaşık" [ Cumhuriyet - gazete, 1932]
Arap ve Acem karışık çetrefil dilimiz bile garbın fikriyat ve bediiyatile temasımızda sonra

1. sıfat Karışıklığı dolayısıyla, anlaşılması veya sonuca bağlanması güç
"Çetrefil siyasete aklım ermez." - A. İlhan
2. Yapı ve ses kurallarına aykırı kullanılan (dil)
"Onun çetrefil bir dili var."
3. Sarp, engelli ve engebeli (yer)

"Bu engebeli, orasından burasından kayalıklı sel yataklarıyla kesilmiş çetrefil arazide, yönlerini bulmalarını kolaylaştıracak bir harita..." - A. İlhan
Not: Karş. çat pat, çatra patra (bir dili eksik veya yanlış şive ile konuşma ifade eden deyimler).

madrabaz: swindler, cheat, hockster EN[2]; fromGR metaprátis μεταπράτης düzenbaz, spekülatör, ucuz alıp pahalı satan;oldGR meta+ prátēs πράτης satıcı < oldGR pérnēmi πέρνημι satmak. Ucuz alıp pahalı satan, hilekâr, muhtekir. from PE madarabāz (matrah + baz) 1. Hayvan, balık, sebze, meyve vb. yiyecekleri yerinden getirerek toptan satan kimse 2. Hile yapan kimse "spekülatör" [ Mercimek Ahmed, Kâbusname terc., 1432] ṭaχı ucuz alıp kız [kıt] olıcak satam diyenin adı madrabāz olur "... hilekâr" [ Ahmed Vefik Paşa, Lehce-ı Osmani, 1876] "Hiçbir hareketi tanımıyor, sadece mahir bir madrabaz edasıyla çıkarına bakıyor." - E. İ. Benice 

[1] complicated (adj.) 1640s, "composed of interconnected parts, not simple," past-participle adjective from complicate. Figurative meaning "not easy to solve, intricate, confused, difficult to explain or understand" is from 1650s

intricate (adj.) early 15c., from Latin intricatus "entangled," past participle of intricare "to entangle, perplex, embarrass," from in- "in" (from PIE root *en "in") + tricae (plural) "perplexities, hindrances, toys, tricks," a word of uncertain origin (compare extricate). Related: Intricately; intricateness.

tortuous (adj.) late 14c., "full of twists and turns," from Anglo-French tortuous (12c.), Old French tortuos, from Latin tortuosus "full of twists, winding," from tortus "a twisting, winding," from stem of torquere "to twist, wring, distort" (from PIE root *terkw- "to twist"). Related: Tortuously; tortuousness.

[2] swindler (n.) 1774, from German Schwindler "giddy person, extravagant speculator, cheat," from schwindeln "to be giddy, act extravagantly, swindle," from Old High German swintilon "be giddy," frequentative form of swintan "to languish, disappear;" cognate with Old English swindan, and probably with swima "dizziness." Said to have been introduced in London by German Jews c. 1762.

cheat (v.) mid-15c., "to escheat, to seize as an escheat," a shortening of Old French escheat, legal term for revision of property to the state when the owner dies without heirs, literally "that which falls to one," past participle of escheoir "happen, befall, occur, take place; fall due; lapse (legally)," from Late Latin *excadere "fall away, fall out," from Latin ex- "out" (see ex-) + cadere "to fall" (from PIE root *kad- "to fall").


Also compare escheat. The royal officers who had charge of  escheats evidently had a reputation for unscrupulousness, and the meaning of the verb evolved through "confiscate" (mid-15c.) to "deprive unfairly" (1580s), to "deceive, impose upon, trick" (1630s). Intransitive sense "act dishonestly, practice fraud or trickery" is from 1630s. To cheat on (someone) "be sexually unfaithful" is attested by 1934. 

huckster (n.) c. 1200, "petty merchant, peddler" (often contemptuous), from Middle Dutch hokester "peddler," from hoken "to peddle" (see hawk (v.1)) + agent suffix -ster (which was typically feminine in English, but not in Low German). Specific sense of "advertising salesman" is from 1946 novel by Frederick Wakeman. As a verb from 1590s. Related: Huckstered; huckstering.