1. = CAFFRE 1, ‘infidel,’ Giaour.
1814. Southey, Roderick, V. 198. A Moor came by, and seeing him [the Goth], exclaimed Ah, Kaffer! worshipper of wood and stone.
1865. Daily Tel., 22 Oct., 5/1. Mecca … if the Moslems would permit … a ‘kaffir’ to come there.
2. = CAFFRE 2; one of a South African race belonging to the Bântu family. Also attrib., and as the name of their language.
1801. Monthly Rev., XXXV. 346. The incursions of the tribe of people called Kaffers.
1834. Boyce (title), Grammar of the Kaffir Language.
1857. Chambers’s Inform. People, II. 294/2. The Kafirs, a race strikingly different both from Hottentots and negroes. The Kafir nation consists of numerous sections.
1890. Pall Mall Gaz., 15 May, 3/1. I asked questions about the Kafir voter.
b. pl. The Stock Exchange term for South African mine shares. Also attrib.
1889. Rialto, 23 March (Farmer). Tintos climbed to 121/4, and even Kaffirs raised their sickly heads.
1895. Daily News, 2 April, 2/2. Dealers in the Kaffir market.
1895. Nation (N.Y.), 19 Dec., 451/2. The mines floated on the London Stock Exchange which are classed under the general head of ‘Kaffirs.’
1899. H. Frederic, Market-place, 32. It was one of the men I’ve been talking about—one of those Kaffir scoundrels.
3. A native of Kafiristan in Asia.
1854. Latham, Hum. Spec., in Orr’s Circle Sc., Organ. Nat., I. 336. Kafiristan, or the Land of the Kafirs … on the watershed between the Oxus and the north-western system of the Indus. Ibid., 338. A Kafir, when sitting on the ground, stretches his legs like a European.
1896. Sir G. Robertson (title), Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush.
4. attrib. and comb. Kaffir-boom [Du. boom tree] = Kaffir-tree; Kaffir bread, the name of several species of South African cycads with edible pith; Kaffir corn, Indian millet, Sorghum vulgare; Kaffir date or plum, or Kaffir’s scimitar tree, a South African tree, Harpephyllum caffrum, N.O. Anacardiaceæ; Kaffir tea, the plant Helichrysum nudifolium; Kaffir(’s) tree, a South African leguminous tree, Erythrina caffra.
1880. Silver & Co.’s S. Africa (ed. 3), 135. *Kaffir-boom … wood soft and light.
1882. Garden, 10 June, 410/3. Encephalartos, or *Kaffir Bread, is a genus confined to South Africa.
1836. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 7), XII. 659/2. The soil is fertile, and has produced three crops of *Kaffre and Indian corn in the year.
1896. N. Amer. Rev., CLXIII. 715. Put the land into kafir corn.
1880. Silver & Co.’s S. Africa (ed. 3), 139. The *Kaffir Plum … an edible fruit about an inch long.
1866. Treas. Bot., 468/1. Erythrina caffra, the Kaffir-boom of the Dutch, or *Kaffir’s tree.
Hence Kaffirhood; Kaffirize v.
1858. Compend. Kafir Laws and Cust., Mount Cope, Brit. Kaffraria, 166. A Kafirized form of some tribal name given by the Hottentots.
1877. J. A. Chalmers, Tiyo Soga, xxi. 435. He was disposed to glory in his Kafirhood.
