KAFIR • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Kafir

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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.

kafir n. Same as Kaffir. (South Africa)

Synonyms: kaffir, caffer, caffre.

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Etymology of 'Kafir'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Kafir" Quotes from Famous Books

... that the white man, with all his science and all his so-called Christianity, has only come among these three peoples mentioned (and how many more?) to destroy and defile them—to flog the mild and innocent native of the Amazons to death for greed of his rubber; to rob the Kafir of his free wild lands and blast his life with drink and slavery in the diamond mines; to degrade and exterminate the Pacific islanders with all the vices ...

— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... thought of Elandslaagte again and of Colonel Schiel and Dinizulu, the Kafir chief, and of the story the colonel had told, as they bivouacked round the fire, of the latter's royal anointment with castor-oil. They had made the fire with the covers of "Mellin's Food" boxes—Mellin's Food—a fine chap, Mellin—Mellin?— Wasn't that the name ...

— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... 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

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