Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. Anglo-Ind.) news, orig. that given to hunters about local game; thus rumour, gossip (see cite 1875).

1832		Capt. Mundy Pen and Pencil Sketches I 109: [W]hilst we were at breakfast, the servant informed us that there were some gongwalas, or villagers, who had some khubber (news) about tigers to give us.
1841		F.J. Bellew ‘Memoirs of a Griffin’ in Asiatic Jrnl & Mthly Register May 52: Just now taking a dekh (look) at the Calcutta Khubber (News), I saw your name.
1850		‘Tom Harkaway’ ‘Sequel to Sport in the Worst Station in Bengal’ in India Sporting Review Sept. 110: Lots of khubber; changed our beat by crossing the nullah; we were beating a small tree jungle bordering the edges of a small jheel, when up jumped a tigress.
1854		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 July 79/1: One ignorant lubber / Sinds lashins o’ Kubber / Regardin the prices of cotton.
1871		Times of India 28 Oct. 1/4: [small ads] BURKA KHUBBER. DAVE CARSON SAHIB KA PUCKA TUMASHA ANNAI CHATA HI.
1872		‘Aleph Cheem’ Lays of Ind 66: Then thirty-two shikarrees black. / And tough as india-rubber. / Who’d run their fifty miles and back / To bring the sahib khubber.
1873		Wagga Wagga Exp. (NSW) 8 Feb. 4/2: On Saturday last the ‘khabber’ of tiger was again afloat.
1875		‘Aleph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 145: The khubbur about the coin was wrong.
1877		R.A. Sterndale Seonee 135: the Lalla, who was always poking his nose about into every corner for khubbur, came to me [etc].
1890		Kipling ‘Letters on Leave’ in Pioneer (1909) 198: Now and again men drift in with news, but I don't like hot-weather khubber. It's all of the domestic occurrence kind.
1893		J.M. Brown Stray Sport I 222: The beaters were rewarded with double pay as an incentive, not only to give us khubber of hog, but to come and beat on a future occasion.
1893		‘Raoul’ Reminiscences of Twenty Years Pigsticking in Bengal 54: I told my guests of the good khubur I had got only a short time before.
1909		Mrs. E. Cotes Burnt Offering 206: The regiment were in camp [...] and old Tom Scatter got khabber of this new toy of Kolapatta’s.
1909		A. Herbert Two Dianas in Somaliland 93: We had started to march [...] as we had news of splendid ‘khubbah,’ some miles off.
1910		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 21 June 6/3: One goal at least scored, the only khubber we had of it being the applause from that end of the ground.
1929		Jrnl Bombay Natural History Soc. XXXIII 428: I got khabber one day of a tiger kill 5 miles away, a cow being the victim.
1935		J.W. Mitchell Wheels of Ind 180: Trackers have been sent out to bring in khabber, or news, of our quarry.
1940		E. Thompson Indian Day 241: ‘Then one day they got khubber that the creature had killed an old woman at Simuldanga’.
2005		J. Suraiya in John Entry From Backside Only 118: Outside gentry not having inside khabar on loins and ‘snakes’ and joos was getting too much shocked.