From Turkish bahşiş, from Persian بخشیش or بخشش, from بخشیدن ("to give, grant, bestow").

• IPA: /bækˈʃiːʃ/

baksheesh (uncountable)

1. In the Middle East or southwest Asia: a bribe or tip.

   Synonyms: grease payment, lubrication payment

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Temptation”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC ↗, page 265 ↗:

     What an honour to think that I am to be elevated to the throne, and to bring the seat in Parliament as backsheesh to the sultan!

   • 1869, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XLVIII, in The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company. […], →OCLC ↗, pages 504–505 ↗:

     As we rode into Magdala not a soul was visible. But the ring of the horses' hoofs roused the stupid population, and they all came trooping out—old men and old women, boys and girls, the blind, the crazy, and the crippled, all in ragged, soiled and scanty raiment, and all abject beggars by nature, instinct and education. […] [O]ut of their infidel throats, with one accord, burst an agonizing and most infernal chorus: "Howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! howajji, bucksheesh! bucksheesh! bucksheesh!" I never was in a storm like that before. As we paid the bucksheesh out to sore-eyed children and brown, buxom girls with repulsively tattooed lips and chins, we filed through the town […]

2. (military slang) A minor wound that is severe enough to get a soldier sent away from the front.

   Synonyms: buckshee, Blighty one

• French: bakchich
• German: Bakschisch
• Portuguese: baksheesh
• Russian: бакши́ш
• Spanish: baksheesh

baksheesh (baksheeshes, present participle baksheeshing; simple past and past participle baksheeshed)

1. To bribe with a baksheesh.