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Kafir   Listen
noun
Kafir, Kaffir  n.  
1.
(Ethnol.)
(a)
One of a race which, with the Hottentots and Bushmen, inhabit South Africa. They inhabit the country north of Cape Colony, the name being now specifically applied to the tribes living between Cape Colony and Natal, including the Ponda, Xosa, and Tembu; but the Zulus of Natal are true Kaffirs.
(b)
One of a race inhabiting Kafiristan in Central Asia. (Spelt also Caffre)
2.
Any Black African; a disparaging and offensive term used by white South Africans. (South Africa)
Synonyms: kaffir, caffer, caffre.
Kaffir corn (Bot.), a Cape Colony name for Indian millet.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Kafir" Quotes from Famous Books



... son of Zangalele, the Kafir whose brother Tambiso gave evidence against you when you ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... which case all his escort would have been put to death. A hut was assigned to him, a sort of beehive of grass and mud, with a hole to enter by. His own lines, strung together in his many unoccupied moments for his children's benefit, are so good a description of the Kaffir huts that form a kraal or village, as to be ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... upon their ship, showing its tapering masts and every detail of the rigging. It passed on beyond them, and revealed the low, foam-fringed coast-line rising here and there, dotted with kloofs and their clinging bush. Even the round huts of Kaffir kraals became faintly visible in that radiance. Other things became visible also—for instance, the ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... projecting considerably beyond the others in the same manner as in the anthropomorphous apes, but in a less degree. In these cases, open spaces between the teeth in the one jaw are left for the reception of the canines of the opposite jaw. An inter-space of this kind in a Kaffir skull, figured by Wagner, is surprisingly wide. (44. Carl Vogt's 'Lectures on Man,' Eng. translat., 1864, p. 151.) Considering how few are the ancient skulls which have been examined, compared to recent skulls, it is an interesting fact that in at least three cases the canines ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... asked him what he had been up to since the war began. He spat, in the Kaffir way he had, and said he had been having ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... accent, patois; provincialism, regionalism, localism; broken English, lingua franca; Anglicism, Briticism, Gallicism, Scotticism, Hibernicism; Americanism[obs3]; Gypsy lingo, Romany; pidgin, pidgin English, pigeon English; Volapuk, Chinook, Esperanto, Hindustani, kitchen Kaffir. dog Latin, macaronics[obs3], gibberish; confusion of tongues, Babel; babu English[obs3], chi-chi. figure of speech &c. (metaphor) 521; byword. colloquialism, informal speech, informal language. substandard ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... in infancy that we are left with a surplus of adult women which is sufficiently large to claim attention, and yet not large enough to enable every man to have two wives. Even if it were, we should be met by an economic difficulty. A Kaffir is rich in proportion to the number of his wives, because the women are the breadwinners. But in our civilization women are not paid for their social work in the bearing and rearing of children and the ordering of households; they are quartered ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... surface was smooth, but somewhat further south it became rough and stony, affording very good cover. In our present situation we were thus almost completely exposed to the enemy's fire. The English, on the other hand, had excellent positions. There were a number of ruined Kaffir kraals scattered about from the middle of the mountain to its southern end, and these the enemy had occupied, thus ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

... of her beauty and strength by the savage passions of man: she is the merest abject slave everywhere. The young women are beautiful, but it is only for a brief season: it soon passes like the fragile rose into the ashes of premature old age. In Dahomey she is a soldier; in Kaffir-land she tends the herds, and builds houses; and in Congo without her industry man would starve. Everywhere man's cruel hand is against her. Everywhere she is the slave ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... journey took the caravan into the neighbourhood of Kouka. They had been told that the sheikh's soldiers were a few ragged negroes, armed with spears, who lived upon the plunder of the black Kaffir countries. Greatly to their astonishment, as they approached the town they beheld a body of several thousand cavalry, drawn up in line and extending right and left as ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... men which my father called philistines has this common characteristic, that for all wonders and mysteries they forthwith find a convenient explanation. Does the truth not fit it exactly? Then they do as did the Kaffir, who receiving as a present a much too narrow pair of shoes, solved the difficulty by undauntedly chopping off his toes and then, greatly delighted, went out walking ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... unfamiliar, unfriendly, and sparsely settled country into Portuguese territory and the coast, they left to chance. But with luck they hoped to cover the distance in a fortnight, begging corn at the Kaffir kraals, sleeping by day, and marching under cover of ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... Does Kaffir corn yield as well here as Egyptian corn? The fodder is good feed and the heads stand erect and at a more even height from the ground, which makes three advantages over Egyptian. Irrigation in either ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... he listens at the ticket office to the voice of That-which-was-James. "One first London," it says and Gerald, waiting till That and the Ugly-Wugly have strolled on to the platform, politely conversing of politics and the Kaffir market, takes a third return to London. The train strides in, squeaking and puffing. The watched take their seats in a carriage blue-lined. The watcher springs into a yellow wooden compartment. A whistle sounds, a flag is waved. The train pulls ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... are numerous—contend that this rudimentary method is the best in all things. They talk science to their readers as they might talk slippers to Baptiste. Kaffir syntax does not shock them. Do not speak to them of the value of a well selected term, set down in its right place, still less of a lilting construction, sounding rather well. Childish nonsense they call all that; the fiddling of ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... he, glancing savagely round.—'We expected your return and have prepared a feast to welcome you,' was the ironical reply of the favourite wife, who at the same time trembling in her limbs scarce dared to face the enraged tyrant, 'It is a lie, offspring of a Kaffir; you shall pay the penalty of your disobedience of my orders. Here, Saleh, take her and throw her over the battlements into the river;' but ere the reluctant eunuch could enforce the cruel mandate, the woman ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... thought, much more decorous than the one at Exeter Hall. Canon Thornton-Moore, a man of stately presence, high social standing and very considerable wealth—he had married the daughter of one of the most successful operators in the Kaffir Circus—made an ideal chairman. He was a High Churchman and the son of a Bishop. He was the incarnation of the most aristocratic section of the Anglican Church. He was supported by the presence of a Duke and two High Church peers on the platform, and half a dozen vicars and curates, ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith

... ponderous Dutch wagons. Hippopotamus-teeth and ostrich-feathers indicate clearly enough the section we are in. Maize has been fully acclimated in Africa, and mush and milk now form the principal food of the whole Kaffir nation. It has spread nearly all over Africa, but some central portions yet depend entirely for farinaceous food upon the seed of the sorghum and dourra. On the Zambesi corn in all stages of growth may be seen at all seasons of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... star, he insisted on that) selected to bring him into juxtaposition with the man whose life was to be inexorably mingled with his own from that time henceforward. The actual meeting place was a tin-roofed grog shanty kept by a giant Kaffir woman and a sore-eyed degenerate white man, whose subjection to his black paramour had earned for him among the blacks on the field the terrible sobriquet of "White Harry." Here, one night, Thalassa sat drinking bad beer and planning impossible ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... happened one evening that, as he made his way towards the village—making up his mind that if there was nothing else he must have a sheep—he suddenly came across the dead body of a little Kaffir boy lying ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... when I was quite worn out. There lay poor Scroope turning and muttering in the little tent, and there I sat by his side, wondering whether he would live to see another dawn, or if he did, for how long I should be able to tend him. I called to a Kaffir to bring me my coffee, and just was I was lifting the pannikin to my lips with a shaking ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... is the son of John Moray, who is farming in South Africa, and he has a brother, Bob. There is also a Kaffir worker on the farm, Joe, or by his preference Joeboy. Joeboy is a co-hero of the story. Moriarty arrives with a few of the Boers and demands that Val be handed over to him to go and fight the British. Val has to go, but manages to escape. He ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... bardos]] and the Seers [[Greek: manteis]]. The former present the familiar features of the cosmopolitan minstrel. They sing to harps [[Greek: organon tais lurais homoion]], both fame and disfame. The latter seem to have corresponded with the witch-doctors of the Kaffir tribes, deriving auguries from the dying struggles of their victims (frequently human), just as the Basuto medicine-men tortured oxen to death to prognosticate the issue of the war between Great Britain and the Boers ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... time. Mr. Thornton once mentioned to his wife that the Rev. Courtenay Despard had joined the Eleventh Regiment, and had gone to South Africa. He mentioned this because he had seen a paragraph stating that a Captain Despard had been killed in the Kaffir war, and wondered whether it could by any possibility be their old friend ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... more days we were busily employed in unpacking stores, and putting the materiel of battery into shape, while, at the same time, we were receiving our complement of mules and Kaffir drivers for our transport waggons. Then came our first parades and drills. Rough we were no doubt at first. The mobilization of a volunteer battery cannot be carried out in an instant, and presents numberless difficulties from which ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... spots in the world, but never had he come across so savagely repellent a spot as this. It was Nature in her harshest mood—not a vestige in any direction of human or animal life. There was not a farm, not a Boer or Kaffir, not even a tree to be seen. Nothing in every direction but a monotonous waste of yellow sand, rough stones and stunted grass. An unnatural stillness filled the air, making the silence oppressive, and ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... The Kaffir Race—Physically and mentally considered: with engravings, from life, of young and old natives. Northwestern Australians—Appearance, customs, and peculiarities, ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... and if a burgher fell or was wounded, one of them was brought out to take his place. The burghers were also destitute of the necessary clothes. Mealies were still abundant, and they had a fair number of cattle, but at the present moment the British had all the mealie and Kaffir-corn fields in their possession, and if they should cut these fields off by a block house line, his food would be in their hands. With reference to the Cape Colony, he had about 1,800 men there, and General de Wet about 600. He saw a chance of ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell

... stole into the room to see him, and how between the first and second parts he dashed off his new Etudes and a new Concerto, to the astonishment of the Leipzigers, and I afterwards resumed my St. Paul, just as if a Cherokee and a Kaffir had met and conversed. He has such a pretty new notturno, several parts of which I have retained in my memory for the purpose of playing it for Paul's amusement. Thus we passed the time pleasantly together, and he promised seriously to return in the course of the winter if I would compose a new ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... 1836-7 was brought about by the emancipation of the slaves and by the refusal or inability of the Government to protect the farmers against the raids of the "Kaffir"[4] tribes on the border. There is no doubt that enslaved Hottentots, Bushmen, and even Malays who had been with the knowledge of the authorities imported from Madagascar and Malacca, were often ill-treated by individual slave-owners; but the Boers resented the ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... affairs would no doubt be equally secluded in their business. Selfishness would make him silent. And so it was that "the dude" of the camp and the kraal, the factotum, who in his time had brushed Rhodes' clothes when he brushed his own, after the Kaffir servant had messed them about, came to be a millionaire and one of the Partners. For him South Africa had no charms. He was happy in London, or at his country-seat in Leicestershire, where he followed the hounds with a temerity which was at base vanity; where he gave the county the best food to be ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... direction, with as little obvious intention as herds of buffalo. But each had his appointed work, and each was utterly indifferent to the battle going forward a mile away. Hundreds of teams, of sixteen oxen each, crawled like great black water-snakes across the drifts, the Kaffir drivers, naked and black, lashing them with whips as long as lariats, shrieking, beseeching, and howling, and falling upon the oxen's horns to drag them ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... received his report at first in a very stiff official manner, assuring him with a frown that he was very loth to have in his division officers who had been in disgrace; then almost fell on his neck, and asked him if it were true that the Kaffir girls had such ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... small amounts to make them universal substitutes, such as buckwheat, cottonseed meal, and peanut flour, any of which can be used with other flours for baking. The Southwest produces both flour and meal from milo, kaffir, ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker

... Dutchmen, Jews, Kaffirs, "Cape boys" and Malays bustle about the streets conversing in five or six different languages. There is a delightful freedom from conventionalism in the matter of dress. At one moment you meet a man in a black or white silk hat, at another a grinning Kaffir bears down upon you with the costume of a scarecrow; you next pass a couple of dignified Malays with long silken robes and the inevitable tarbush, volubly chattering in Dutch or even Arabic. These Malays ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett

... of a vast flat-topped mass of granite unique among the natural elevations of the world. She is another melting pot. Here mingle Kaffir and Boer, Basuto and Britisher, East Indian and Zulu. The hardy rancher and fortune-hunter from the North Country rub shoulders with the globe-trotter. In the bustling streets modern taxicabs vie for space with antiquated hansoms ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... the closed Pavilion doors have kept Their silence while the white-eyed Kaffir slept, And wailed the Nightingale with 'Jug, jug, jug!' Whereat, for empty ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch



Words linked to "Kafir" :   caffre, afghan, kafir corn, kaffir, caffer, Black African, South Africa, Republic of South Africa, derogation, disparagement, depreciation



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