Ootacamund

Etymology

The region was earlier known as orrai-kal manru, with orrai-kal meaning 'single stone' in Tamil, a reference to a sacred stone revered by the local Toda people and manru, a word for Toda village. It later became Udagamandalam in Tamil, which was anglicised to Ootacamund during the British Raj, with Ootaca being a corruption of the local name for the region and mand was a shortened form of the local word mandu. In a letter written to the Madras Gazette in March 1821, the name of the place is mentioned as Wotokymund. Ootacamund was later shortened to Ooty. It is the major town in the Nilgiris, which means "blue mountains", so named due to the Kurunji flower, which used to give the slopes a bluish tinge.