Gypsies, a race of people of wandering habits, presumed to be of Indian origin, found scattered over Europe, Asia, and Africa, and even in America, who appear to have begun to migrate westward from the valley of the Indus about A.D. 1000, and to have reached Europe in the 14th century, and to owe their name gypsies to their supposed origin in Egypt. They in general adhere to their unsettled habits wherever they go, show the same tastes, and follow the same pursuits, such as tinkering, mat-making, basket-making, fortune-telling. On their first appearance they were mere vagabonds and thieves.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Gymnotus * Haafiz