It is a common misconception that words borrowed from English (or other European languages) found their way into Urdu only after the 1857 War of Independence. The fact is that English loanwords, or words borrowed from some other European languages such as French, had begun penetrating into the Urdu language well before 1857. This is evident from the Urdu poetry composed by Insha Allah Khan Insha, Mushafi and some other poets who had lived much before 1857. Some Portuguese loanwords had assimilated into Urdu even earlier, since the south-western coasts of India, such as Goa and Surat, had been colonized by the Portuguese as early as the late 16th and early 17th centuries. This article records the loanwords borrowed by Urdu from certain European languages. It presents the illustrative Urdu verses, composed before 1857, as citations.