gymkhana: [19] The British brought the word gymkhana back with them from India, where they found it as Hindi gendkhāna, literally ‘ballhouse’, the name given to a racket court. The first syllable gym- is generally assumed to be an alteration of gend- on the analogy of gymnasium. The term was originally used for a ‘sports ground’; the current sense ‘horse-riding contest’ seems to have developed after World War I.
1854, Anglo-Indian, said to be from Hindustani gend-khana, literally "ball house," said in Yule & Burnell's 1886 glossary of Anglo-Indian words to be "the name usually given in Hindu to an English racket-court." The second element is from Middle Persian khan "house," from Iranian *ahanam "seat," from PIE *es- "to sit." Altered in English by influence of gymnasium, etc.
