caffre
(ˈkɑːfə(r), -æ-)
Forms: 6 cafar, 6–7 caffare, 7 cafre, coffery, 8 coffrie, -ree, -re, 9 caffree, 8–9 cafer, caffer, caffre: see also kaffir.
[ad. Arab. kāfir infidel, impious wretch, one who does not recognize the blessings of God, f. kafara to cover up, conceal, deny.]
‖ 1. A word meaning ‘infidel’, applied by the Arabs to all non-Muslims, and hence to particular tribes or nations. More accurately kafir.
| 1680 Taverner's Relat. of Tunquin 86 The Cafer seeing his Child white, would have immediately fallen upon his Wife and strangled her. 1698 Fryer Acc. E. India & Pers. 91 (Y.) Why he suffers..this Coffery (Unbeliever) to vaunt it thus. 1799 Sir T. Munro Lett. in Life I. 221 (Y.) He [Tippoo]..was to drive the English Caffers out of India. 1804 Duncan Mariner's Chron. I. 297 He..put me in imminent danger of my life, by telling the natives that I was a Caffer, and not a Mussulman. 1812 A. Plumtre Lichtenstein's S. Africa I. 241 Being Mahommedans, they gave the general name of Cafer (Liar, Infidel) to all the inhabitants of the coasts of Southern Africa. 1817 Keatinge Trav. I. 250 A Moor will..point his musquet at, the women abuse, and the children pursue the caffre (infidel), the generic term for Christian here. |
2. spec. In ordinary Eng. use: A member of a South African race of Blacks belonging to the great Bantu family, and living in the north-east of the Republic of South Africa, in an area formerly known as Caffraria or Caffre-land. Also the name of their language, and used attributively.
Cust (Modern Languages of Africa II. 298) makes Kafir the general name of his Eastern subdivision of the Southern division of the Bantu family, and includes under it Xhosa, Zulu, and Gwamba; in popular use the term has been generally restricted to the Xhosa, or to these and the Zulu.
| 1599 Hakluyt Voy. II. i. 242 The Captaine of this castle [Mozambique] hath certaine voyages to this Cafraria..to trade with the Cafars. 1731 Medley Kolben's Cape G. Hope I. 81 The Caffres..are so far from bearing any affinity or resemblance with the Hottentots, that they are a quite different sort of people. 1833 Athenæum 2 Nov. 729 A mission among the Ammakosa, or Kaffers, as they have been erroneously denominated. 1834 Pringle Afr. Sk. xiv. 413 The Caffers are a tall, athletic, and handsome race. |
3. A native of Kafiristan in Asia; see kaffir.
4. attrib. and in comb. as Caffre-boy, Caffre-slave; Caffre-bread, a South African cycadaceous tree with edible pith; Caffre-corn, one of the names of Indian millet, Sorghum vulgare, cultivated as a cereal in tropical Africa.
| 1781 India Gaz. No. 19 (Y.) To be sold by Private Sale two Coffree Boys. 1786 tr. Sparrman's Voy. Cape G. Hope II. 10 The colonists call it Caffer-corn. 1800 M. Symes Embassy Ava 10 (Y.) The Caffre slaves, who had been introduced for the purpose of cultivating the lands. 1803 R. Percival in Naval Chron. X. 27 Which was the case with a Caffree boy. 1866 Treas. Bot. 450 Encephalartos..the interior of the trunk, and the centre of the ripe female cones, contains a spongy farinaceous pith, made use of by the Caffers as food, and hence the trees are called..Caffer-bread. |