/ˈbɔːrə/, /ˈbəʊrə/, /ˈbʊərə/, U.S. /ˈboʊ(ə)rə/, /ˈbʊrə/, South African English /ˈbʊərə/;Boern.
/bɔː/, /bʊə/, /ˈbəʊə/, U.S. /bɔr/, /bʊ(ə)r/, /ˈboʊər/, South African English /bʊə//ˈbɔːrə/, /ˈbəʊrə/, /ˈbʊərə/, U.S. /ˈboʊ(ə)rə/, /ˈbʊrə/, South African English /ˈbʊərə/;α. 1700s–1800s Boor, 1800s Boar (in compounds, rare).
β. 1700s– Boer.
Also occasionally with lower-case initial. I. Senses relating to people. Cf. boor n.
1.
a. A Dutch-speaking or (later) Afrikaans-speaking farmer in southern Africa. Now historical.
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the world > food and drink > farming > animal husbandry > [noun] > stock-farmer
breeder1531
stock-farmer1769
Boer1776
stock-breeder1815
stockholder1819
veeboer1824
ranchero1825
rancher1836
ranchman1854
stockman1856
pastoral1876
stock-keeper1912
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabitant > colonist or settler > [noun] > other specific colonists or settlers
pilgrim1630
originals1703
old settler1744
Big Knife1750
out-settler1755
provincial1756
Boer1776
freeman1791
Pilgrim Fathers1799
back-settler1809
undertaker1819
oecist1846
Argonaut1848
Canterbury pilgrim1850
poblador1850
shagroon1851
forty-niner1853
planter1858
inside squatter1881
local white1888
Minyan1928
1776 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 66 282 We travelled through the Koud Bocke Veld..and the boors informed us, the summers are often so unkindly, that their wheat is blighted while in ear, so that they purchase corn with their cattle from the low-country farmers.
1797 A. Barnard in S. Afr. Cent. Ago (1925) 53 I think the Boers, or farmers, of the country..a better charactered race than the people of Cape Town.
1820 Caledonian Mercury 21 July From small beginnings,..like the patriarchs of old, and like the African boers of the present day, the younger branches [of English settlers] must swarm off to seek new settlements.
1834 T. Pringle Afr. Sketches i. 127 Tall Dutch-African boors..were bawling in Colonial-Dutch.
1857 D. Livingstone Missionary Trav. S. Afr. ii. 29 The Boers of the Cashan Mountains..The word Boer simply means ‘farmer’, and is not synonymous with our word boor.
1865 E. B. Tylor Res. Early Hist. Mankind i. 11 Such a story..would be naturally referred to the Dutch boers.
1899 D. S. F. A. Phillips S. Afr. Recoll. 28 When he inhabits a town he is no longer called a Boer (which is the Dutch for ‘farmer’), but an Africander of Dutch, German or English extraction.
1936 Cambr. Hist. Brit. Empire VIII. 319 The Boers of the eighteen-thirties—and almost without exception the Trekkers were ‘boers’, that is to say frontier stock-farmers—had a definite character of their own.
1950 H. Gibbs Twilight in S. Afr. 125 In 1832 news comes that Crown lands..must be sold by auction. To..Boers, Afrikaner farmers, it means they must pay for what they had believed their birthright.
1974 A. Fugard Sizwe Bansi is Dead in Statements 28 No matter how hard-arsed the boer on this farm wants to be, he cannot move Outa Jacob.
1980 Rand Daily Mail 19 June 9 There is still a cultural gap between the traditional, largely rural Boers and the new, sophisticated Afrikaners who were the children of the 1948 revolution.
1992 L. Gordon Shared Lives vii. 158 One day, a neighbour dragged me into her flat to meet this farmer—a boer from the backveld.
2004 P. E. Louw Rise, Fall & Legacy Apartheid i. 14 The capitalization of agriculture necessarily spawned a large surplus rural population of Boers and blacks who migrated to slums in the ever-growing cities.
b. With distinguishing epithet, designating a particular type of farmer, as cattle boer, corn boer, wine boer, etc. Now historical.
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1785 G. Forster tr. A. Sparrman Voy. Cape Good Hope II. xiv. 249 In their company..came to this place a husbandman, or, as they are usually called here, a corn-boor, from the country near Cape Town.
1785 G. Forster tr. A. Sparrman Voy. Cape Good Hope II. xiv. 327 This tract of country..was so well inhabited, (chiefly by wine-boors) that I could not find room for distinguishing all the farms with the usual circular mark in my map.
1809 Ld. Caledon in G. M. Theal Rec. Cape Colony (1900) VII. 189 Relays of Post Boors, which it is found necessary to hold in readiness for the purpose of keeping up a fixed mode of communication between Cape Town and the Country Districts.
1827 G. Thompson Trav. I. 66 Where he resides, had been formerly occupied by an extensive cattle boor, who had left a memorable monument of his residence in a prodigious dunghill just in front of the house.
1835 G. Champion Jrnl. (1968) 11 He was a wine boor (or farmer) living upon the products of his vineyard.
1905 P. Gibbon Vrouw Grobelaar's Leading Cases 89 He was, of course, a cattle Boer, as all of our family have always been.
1977 R. Elphick Kraal & Castle xi. 223 P. J. van der Merwe has shown that the hunting experience was important in the formation of the cattle boer culture.
2. A South African Dutch-speaking or (later) Afrikaans-speaking colonist at the Cape; (subsequently also) a Dutch-speaking or (later) Afrikaans-speaking settler in southern Africa, esp. in the former South African (Transvaal), Orange Free State, and Natal republics. Now historical. N.E.D. (1887) comments: ‘In recent newspaper language, the name has been applied especially to those of the Transvaal and other districts beyond the British dominions.’
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1800 Lady A. Barnard in D. Fairbridge Lady Anne Barnard (1924) 227 I do not think the Boers after what has passed will be turbulent in a hurry again.
1825 G. Barker Jrnl. 25 July (MS 14258, Cory Libr., Rhodes Univ., Grahamstown, S. Afr.) On the road I baptised the child of a Boer at his particular request, the first time I had Baptised the child of a Colonist.
1837 ‘N. Polson’ Subaltern's Sick Leave 111 There were and still are Boers too in this province, but the generality of the population is British.
1898 Argosy Apr. 130 He ran across a friendly young Boer, and the two located a claim which turned out to be quite a little bonanza.
1915 J. K. O'Connor Afrikander Rebellion 10 The townsman has a habit..of classing all kinds of Dutch people in South Africa under the general name of Boers.
a1951 H. C. Bosman Willemsdorp (1977) i. 8 The colonists at the Cape had been welded into that homogeneous entity that constitutes a new nation. They were not Hollanders; they were Boers.
1989 Reader's Digest Illust. Hist. S. Afr. 5 Blacks, British, Boers..and blood; the history of our troubled country is steeped in the stuff.
3. A soldier of the Afrikaner republics fighting against the British, esp. during the South African War (1899–1902) (frequently attributive). Also (in plural): the Afrikaner republican fighting forces. Now historical.Although the vast majority of Boer soldiers were Afrikaners from the Transvaal and Orange Free State republics, they were supplemented by Germans, Irish, and other nationalities.
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1882 C. L. Norris-Newman With Boers in Transvaal 301 The behaviour of the Boers has won them the respect of many.
1900 A. W. Carter Let. 8 Feb. 1 It was practically a drawn battle, the Boers failing to dislodge the British but not being routed from the field.
1926 M. Nathan S. Afr. from Within 102 In August, Kitchener issued a proclamation threatening such Boer leaders as were captured with perpetual banishment.
1977 Sunday Times (S. Afr.) 6 Nov. (Mag. section) 3 The final irony, with the Boers winning the peace so quickly after losing the war, is briefly but nicely touched on.
1989 W. Ebersohn in Cosmopolitan Apr. 200 At the Treaty of Vereeniging, only six out of the 60 members of the Boer contingent were in favour of rejecting the terms and continuing the war.
2014 C. Ash Kruger, Kommandos & Kak vi. 181 Given that time was of the essence, the Boers advanced at a surprisingly leisurely pace.
4. An Afrikaner; a white South African of Dutch, German, or Huguenot descent. Also occasionally: any white South African.Among non-Afrikaners, frequently in depreciative use, esp. before the changes of 1994.Among Afrikaners of the far right, used to distinguish themselves from those Afrikaners whom they believe have ‘sold out’, frequently relating to the establishment of a separate homeland for like-minded Afrikaners.
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the world > people > nations > native or inhabitant of Africa > native or inhabitant of Southern Africa > [noun] > Afrikaner
Hollander1699
Afrikaner1820
Afrikander1822
Cape Dutch1826
trek Boer1835
Low Dutch1900
trek-farmer1912
Boer1956
boertjie1956
1956 D. Jacobson Dance in Sun 39 ‘I knew the baas wasn't a Boer’, the African said... If he had approached me on the strength of my not being an Afrikaner, or Boer as he preferred to put it, he had been foolhardy and reckless.
1967 E. Cole & T. Flaherty House of Bondage 51/2 Boer farmers need cheap labor and it is a convenience that the Boer-dominated Government has a steady supply of prisoners available for rent at low cost.
1973 Weekend Post (Port Elizabeth) 17 Feb. 9 We sit in Africa and we are not Africans... We go to England and we find out that we are Boers who try to live like the English here under the Southern Cross.
1974 J. Matthews Park 31 ‘The white people are not all bad. It's only the Boere’, she said.
1978 Sunday Times (S. Afr.) 30 Apr. 7/4 The Afrikaner cannot afford to allow a wedge to be cunningly driven between English and Afrikaner by catering only for a Boer homeland.
1984 D. Beckett Frontline Feb. 36 Overall, he says, there are plenty of white people putting in good and honest efforts. The trouble is that the blacks always believed the worst... ‘They just say “Rubbish, man, the Boere rob us”.’
1988 Frontline Oct. 23 Within the ranks of the far Right, a question rages..: ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who's the purest Boer of all?’... For some of the ultra-right a ‘Boer’ is a descendant of a Trekker, as opposed to an ‘Afrikaner’..those Cape Afrikaners who stayed behind..talking English with the imperialists.
1990 R. Malan My Traitor's Heart 127 The great Boer poet [Breyten Breytenbach] spent the sixties in exile in Paris and most of the seventies in a South African prison, paying for his role in a quixotic ‘terrorist’ plot.
1990 R. Malan My Traitor's Heart (1991) ii. 268 In the end, he [sc. P. W. Botha] even scrapped the hated pass laws, a move that heralded the end of the deranged Boer fantasy of a pure white South Africa.
1990 Weekend Argus (Cape Town) 14 July 15 I was scared to death and thought I would never get out of Soweto alive, especially after Dhlomo had introduced me as a ‘Boer’ when we visited a shebeen one night.
5. During apartheid: a member of the South African security forces, including any member of the police force, prison service, or defence force (frequently in plural). Also in plural (usually with the): the police force, prison service, or defence force enforcing the apartheid system. Now historical.
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1970 in Dict. of S. Afr. Eng. on Hist. Princ. (1996) 82/1 The boere threw the drunkard in the van.
1978 Daily Dispatch 20 Mar. 7 He said the talks centred around..the withdrawal of South African troops... ‘But we never sat with the Boere and they were too scared to sit with the terrorists,’ he said.
1980 C. Hope Separate Developm. (1983) 138 I'm thinking myself safe and sound..when the boere smash through the door and haul me off to the big hotel.
1989 Daily Dispatch 4 Apr. 1 They had been instructed by their regional commander in Angola to..‘observe if the Boers (SADF) had been restricted to base’.
1991 D. Rowe Wanting Everything (1994) 374 In South Africa, following teargassing and beating of school children by security forces, games of ‘comrades vs boere’ (police) are frequent.
2004 H. Strachan Make a Skyf, Man! xvii. 198 The lifer from Central [Prison] who's been running the place..is down the passage with the Parole Board, and the boer in charge doesn't know where anything is.
6. During apartheid: the South African government. Chiefly in plural with the. Now historical.As the National Party government consisted almost entirely of Afrikaners, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish this sense from sense 4.
ΚΠ
1976 Eastern Province Herald (Port Elizabeth) 19 Nov. 17/4 A Coloured school principal who is a member of the liaison committee in his town..said he had been told his home was stoned because ‘I work with the Boere’.
1977 Sunday Times 27 Nov. 8 I am by no means predicting a Boer-Soviet pact. But can we afford to neglect this possibility completely?
1986 Herald (Zimbabwe) in Cape Times 24 Jan. 6 The fact that the Boers have now been able to successfully engineer a coup against an African leader they do not like is an indication of the seriousness with which frontline states should treat the dangers of apartheid.
1989 Weekly Mail (S. Afr.) 27 Oct. 26 I don't think the boers (government) will allow the rally to be advertised, let alone permit it.
II. Other senses.
7. coarse home-cured tobacco, made for chewing, smoking, or use as snuff; = boer tobacco n. at Compounds. Now rare.
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the world > physical sensation > use of drugs and poison > tobacco > [noun] > other types of tobacco
craccus1617
mavis1641
shoot-tobacco1666
funk1677
black tobacco1698
kite's-foot1788
dark leaf1829
bird's eye1834
bright leaf1834
honeydew tobacco1835
seed leaf1837
long-tails1839
honeydew1843
caporal1850
dogleg tobacco1856
dogleg1863
Boer1881
burley1881
black boy1898
snus1916
1881 in Diggers' Ditties (1989) 15 I've gin and a pipeful of Boer.
1897 F. W. Sykes With Plumer in Matabeleland 103 A half-pound cake of black tobacco fetched £2, whilst a handful of ‘Boer’ was greedily bought in at 5s.
1900 Westm. Gaz. 14 July 8/1 A smoker may keep his pipe going from early morning till late at night if he uses good ‘Boer’.
1935 C. C. Taylor Agric. Southern Afr. (U.S. Dept. Agric. Techn. Bull. No. 466) 224 The most common tobacco grown for air-curing is Boer grown from a seed of unknown origin.
8. A hardy breed of goat developed in South Africa and kept particularly for its meat, having long pendulous ears and a stocky body that is typically white with a reddish-brown head and neck; a goat of this breed. Frequently attributive, as boer goat, etc.
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1885 Suppl. Blue Bk. Natal: Departmental Rep. 1884 ii. b51 In possession of the European population of this Division there are:—Horses, 1,967;..angora goats, 14,584; Boer and Kafir goats, 570;..and about 11 mules.
1896 R. Wallace Farming Industr. Cape Colony 323 The Boer goat, which is termed the native goat to distinguish it from the recently imported Angora, is a strong, coarse, hardy energetic animal, strongly resembling the English goat.
1906 Agric. Jrnl. Cape Good Hope Nov. 679 If a certain kind of tick attacks the kids of our Boer goats, they..become paralyzed.
1986 3rd World Congr. Genetics applied to Livestock Prod. 9 528 One breed which must hold special interest in connection with meat production from goats is the Boer... In general, the Boer equaled or excelled in growth, litter size and kid weight.
2006 Kerrville (Texas) Daily Times 21 Sept. c5/7 (advt.) Boer bucks & does registered pure breed, 7 mos. large, healthy, gentle, color correct.
Compounds
Designating something made, produced, used by, or typical of Boers, or originating in the rural areas of South Africa; see also boerebeskuit n., boerekos n., boeremusiek n., boerewors n., boerwyn n. boer biscuit n. (a piece of) rusk or hard biscuit; esp. a rustic, rectangular oven-dried bun typically served with coffee, into which it is traditionally dipped; = boerebeskuit n. [After Afrikaans boerebeskuit boerebeskuit n.]
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the world > food and drink > food > dishes and prepared food > biscuit > [noun] > other biscuits
dorcake14..
cracknelc1440
hard breada1500
crackling1598
Naples biscuit1650
gingerbread man1686
chocolate biscuit1702
biscotin1723
sponge biscuit1736
maple biscuita1753
butter biscuit1758
nut1775
Oliver biscuit1786
funeral biscuit1790
rock biscuit?1790
ratafia1801
finger biscuit1812
Savoy drop1816
lady's finger1818
snap1819
Abernethy1830
pretzel1831
wine-biscuit1834
gingersnap1838
captain's biscuit1843
lebkuchen1847
simnel1854
sugar cookie1854
peppernut1862
McClellan pie1863
Savoy ring1866
Brown George1867
beaten biscuit1876
digestive1876
Osborne1876
Bath Oliver1878
marie1878
boer biscuit1882
charcoal biscuit1885
biscotti1886
fairing1888
snickerdoodle1889
pfeffernuss1891
zwieback1894
Nice1895
Garibaldi biscuit1896
Oswegoc1900
squashed fly1900
amaretto1905
boerebeskuit1905
Romary1905
petit beurre1906
Oswego biscuit1907
soetkoekie1910
Oreo1912
custard cream1916
Anzac1923
sweet biscuit1929
langue de chat1931
Bourbon biscuit1932
Afghan1934
flapjack1935
Florentine1936
chocolate chip cookie1938
choc chip cookie1940
Toll House cookie1940
tuile1943
pizzelle1949
black and white1967
Romany Cream1970
papri1978
1882 S. M. Heckford Lady Trader in Transvaal iv. 30 The mother helped all to milk and biscuits—the hard bread is called Boer biscuit here.
1915 Daily Mail 16 Sept. 4 Boer biscuit (or Boer rusk) is a bread that will keep as well as a real biscuit. When dry it defies any but the strongest teeth, but soaked in water, coffee, etc., it is pleasant to the taste and very filling.
a1920 O. Schreiner From Man to Man (1926) iii. 111 One morning..Baby-Bertie was kneeling in the pantry, making Boer biscuits.
1969 D. Child Yesterday's Children xiv. 211 A liberal supply of Boer biscuit, biltong and sausages.
1976 R. L. Wallace Australians at Boer War i. 28 He made well-baked loaves from flour and raisins, known as Boer biscuits.
2013 J. Greig & M. Greig Tony Greig i. 16 Our daily routine..began with our father bringing us a cup of coffee and a dry rusk, a Boer biscuit. We all dunked our rusks into our hot drinks.
boer brandy n. (also boer's brandy) privately distilled brandy.
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1832 Graham's Town Jrnl. (S. Afr.) 24 Feb. 33 W. R. Thompson Will hold a Public Sale on Monday next the 27 instant of a variety of fresh Goods,..Cape and Boers' Brandy etc.
1860 Standard 30 Oct. 3/5 He [sc. Prince Alfred] christened after himself a new ferry-boat, performing the ceremony with a bottle of boer brandy.
1900 B. Mitford Aletta 11 Boer brandy, when pure and well matured, is about the best liquor in the world, and this was the best of its kind.
1977 Family Radio & TV (S. Afr.) 19 Sept. 51 The creation of this Boer brandy has been a dying art since the '20s... Even legal Boer brandy heard the death sentence in 1964 when the KWV ruled that no more private licences would be issued.
boermeal n. (also boer's meal) coarsely ground flour.
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the world > food and drink > food > meal > [noun] > other meals
rye mealc1300
amydonc1440
summer meal?a1513
linseed-meal1599
nocake1634
pinole1648
farinha1726
acorn meal1730
salep1736
corn-meal1782
manna croup1843
mealie-meal1846
rokeag1848
plantain meal1871
boermeal1873
crème de riz1896
unga1896
1873 F. Boyle To Cape for Diamonds x. 141 Boer meal (cheap at this moment (42s per muid (200 lbs)).
1878 Roche's On Trek in Transvaal 110 Bread we could not get, only the Boer's meal, i.e. the flour of the country.
1893 H. A. Bryden Gun & Camera in Southern Afr. vii. 151 We made bread—ingredients: Boer meal, baking powder, and water—this morning.
1949 Cape Times 24 Sept. 8/7 We used to get on farms the boermeal bread made from wheat, and nothing but wheat, ground in the ideal way in stone mills.
1979 Jrnl. Southern Afr. Stud. Oct. 111 The costs of necessary items of consumption had increased by between 20 and 30 per cent since before the war..boermeal (coarse maize meal) by 25 per cent.
1987 M. Black in Oxf. Symp. Food & Cookery 1986 51 In the recipe for Denningvleis..the meat is browned in 2 tablespoons of mutton-fat..and so are pannas (minced boiled shin meat and boermeal, shaped into a loaf, sliced and fried).
Boer Republic n. (now historical) any of various independent, self-governed Boer states founded in southern Africa in the 19th cent.; spec. the South African Republic (the Transvaal) or the Orange Free State.Several small Boer states existed briefly during the 19th cent., including Vryheid, Natalia, Stellaland, Goshen, Winburg, and Utrecht.The Transvaal and Orange Free State were formally annexed to the British Empire in 1902, and became provinces of the Union of South Africa in May 1910. [Compare South African Dutch Boerenrepubliek (mid 19th cent.; Afrikaans Boererepubliek).]
ΚΠ
1853 Patriot 21 Mar. 182/3 If we published against the interests of the Boer republic he could and would prosecute us.
1897 Consular Rep. (U.S. Government) Sept. 143 Since the foundation of the Boer Republic, the Germans have had successful commercial relations with the country [sc. the Transvaal].
1926 M. Nathan S. Afr. from Within 165 He [sc. Jameson] frustrated a Boer raid into his territory, only to become a raider in his turn—thereby endangering peace between Great Britain and the Boer Republics.
1961 T. V. Bulpin White Whirlwind 150 Utrecht, an odd little town which until recently had ranked itself among the capitals of the world, for it had been the political centre of one of the several Boer republics in South Africa.
2011 T. L. Crosby Joseph Chamberlain xi. 131 The Boers had retreated far enough to the north to establish..two Boer republics, the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal).
boer rusk n. = boerebeskuit n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > food > dishes and prepared food > bread > crispbread or rusk > [noun]
biscuit?a1400
rusk1589
boer rusk1902
Ryvita1925
crispbread1926
1902 L. S. Amery Times Hist. War S. Afr. II. xii. 440 A hasty breakfast of Boer rusks and coffee.
1937 S. Cloete Turning Wheels xxv. 392 Going without food except for the Boer rusks and biltong that he carried.
1944 V. Pohl Adventures Boer Family i. 12 Saddlebags stuffed to bursting with boer-rusks, bread, and biltong.
1986 Ld. Anglesey Hist. Brit. Cavalry IV. i. 37 He [sc. the Boer on commando] could subsist for a week or more on a pocketful of biltong,..a small bag of Boer rusks and some coffee beans tied up in a bit of cloth.
2006 W. Steenkamp Jim Zulu ix. 68 He..returned a minute or two later, bearing a battered mug of black tea and a handful of Boer rusks, those great lumpy squares studded with raisins, which he commenced to dip into the tea.
boer tobacco n. (also boer's tobacco) coarse home-cured tobacco, made for chewing, smoking, or use as snuff.
ΚΠ
1832 Graham's Town Jrnl. (S. Afr.) 13 Jan. 12 Public Sale... Brazil Tobacco, Boers' do., Raisins.]
1857 T. Shone Diary 11 Sept. (MS Cory Libr., Rhodes Univ., Grahamstown, S. Afr.) Bought from R.d Bradfield 1/2 lb of boers tobacco, paid /6 for it.
1873 F. Boyle To Cape for Diamonds 80 Collarless, bare-armed, unshorn, he puffed coarse boer tobacco from a short clay pipe.
1924 L. Cohen Reminisc. of Johannesburg 23 These men..whose only pleasures consisted of the delights found in coffee, dop brandy and Boer tobacco.
2002 Daily Mail 14 Dec. (Weekend section) 13/2 The retired Balgarnie,..mouth puckered as he happily puffed at his pipe filled with Boer tobacco.
Boer War n. the South African war (1899–1902) between the two Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, and Great Britain and her colonies; cf. Anglo-Boer adj. Also: the war of 1880–1 between British forces and the Transvaal.
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society > armed hostility > war > types of war > [noun] > other specific war
Punic War1556
Vandal war1613
American Civil War1775
Seven Years War1775
Revolutionary Wara1784
Peninsular war1811
Great War1815
Mormon war1833
opium war1841
the Thirty Years' War1841
the Thirty Years' War1842
Mexican War1846
Napoleonic War1850
Crimean War1854
Hundred Years War1874
Balkan war1881
Boer War1883
Winter War1939
Six Day War1967
Yom Kippur War1973
Gulf War1981
Falklands conflict1982
1883 T. F. Carter (title) A Narrative of the Boer War: Its Causes and Results.
1893 Brown's S. Afr. 209 The town served as the base of the British military operations during the disastrous Boer war and the treaty of peace was signed here in 1881.
1899 Morning Post 19 Sept. 6/2 Officers for the Boer War.
1899 G. Meredith Let. 27 Oct. (1970) III. 1337 I need patience even to speak of this Boer War.]
1900 C. M. Yonge Let. 17 July in C. R. Coleridge C. M. Yonge: Life & Lett. (1903) xii. 345 Aimée tried to explain the rights of the Boer War.
1914 C. Mackenzie Sinister St. II. iii. v. 587 He..figuratively marched across the road to the Canning..galvanizing..the Oxford Tories now wilting under the strain of the Boer war.
1955 G. Greene Quiet Amer. i. iv. 52 Like a panorama of the Boer War in an old Illustrated London News.
1981 H. Domisse in D. Harrison White Tribe Afr. i. 24 This Boer War, was the stupidest war the English ever carried on.
2009 A. S. Byatt Children's Bk. (2010) xx. 231 The Imperialists, who supported the British army in the Boer War,..believed in spreading the virtues of British democracy throughout the world.
Derivatives
ˈBoerdom n. the community or state of the Boers.
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the world > people > nations > native or inhabitant of Africa > native or inhabitant of Southern Africa > [noun] > Afrikaner > collectively
the Dutch1731
Boerdom1858
South African Dutch1877
volk1880
Amabhunu1883
Afrikanerdom1900
1858 Morning Chron. 22 July (Evening ed.) 5/3 It will be a few generations hence before the arms of Boerdom again attempt to molest him.
1884 Pall Mall Gaz. 15 Oct. 6/1 Boerdom develops faster than British progress.
1903 E. F. Knight S. Afr. after War 281 These beautiful rich vales of the granary of the Transvaal, the heart of Boerdom and cradle of ‘Dopperdom’.
1941 C. W. De Kiewiet Hist. S. Afr. 125 President F. W. Reitz, believed that all Boerdom should stand united against the British paramount power.
2004 Times 17 Dec. 67/2 Toponym revolutionaries claim that it [sc. Bloemfontein] is named after the farmer on whose land the capital of Boerdom arose, one Jan Bloem.
Boerˈess n. now historical a Boer girl or woman.
ΚΠ
1851 H. Ward Jasper Lyle II. xix. 339 He saw..that the young Boeress meant kindly, and was obliged to content himself with that idea.
1881 N.Y. Times 20 Mar. 3/4 By the side of a bevy of young Boeresses a tulip-bud is dingy indeed.
1974 D. Rooke Margaretha de la Porte 272 On the afternoon of February 19th 1896 I saw the strangled body of a Boeress's slave.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2019; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1776