KAFFIR • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Kaffir

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

Kafir, Kaffir n.

(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)

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.

See images of 'Kaffir'

Etymology of 'Kaffir'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Kaffir" Quotes from Famous Books

... closed Pavilion doors have kept Their silence while the white-eyed Kaffir slept, And wailed the Nightingale with 'Jug, jug, jug!' Whereat, for empty cup, the White ...

— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the Trichardt Trek has already been told. The Trichardts found the Transvaal overrun by the warriors of Moselikatse, the King of the Matabele and father of Lobengula. The other tribes of the Transvaal were his "dogs," according to the Kaffir term. ...

— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... receptacle contained a rough sort of sun-dried Kaffir tobacco, such as John and Martin had both smoked for the past ...

— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... I thought that the hall also was deserted. I was wrong, and I crept upon a Kaffir on all fours. Poor devil, I could not bring myself to deal him a base blow, but I threatened him most hideously with my revolver, and left the white teeth chattering in his black head as I took the stairs three at a time. Why I went ...

— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... sat down upon a rude seat, improvised out of an empty gin-case. Without the tempest shrieked and howled, the great wind shook the Kaffir hut of grass and wattle, piercing it in a hundred places till the light of the lantern wavered within its glass, and the sick man's hair was lifted from his clammy brow. From time to time fierce squalls of rain fell like sheets of spray, and the water, penetrating the roof of grass, streamed ...

— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

More quotes...