a. Also tambookie, -bootie. [S. Afr. Du., f. Tembu, tribal name + dim. ending -kje, also -tje.] Of or belonging to Tembu-land, as in Tambouki grass, Tambouki wood, a wild grass and timber of S. Africa.
1849. E. E. Napier, Past and Future Emigration, I. III. ii. 323. The Tambookie wood is very hard and durable, and available for homely and ornamental purposes.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Tambookie-wood, a hard handsome furniture-wood: when powdered it is used by the Zulus of Africa as an emetic.
1885. Rider Haggard, K. Solomon’s Mines, iv. Dry tambouki grass … is made into a bed.
1899. Alice Werner, Capt. of Locusts, etc., 80. Open glades with bushes and clumps of tambootie-grass scattered about.
1905. Blackw. Mag., Sept., 382/1. [The grass] was dashed aside by some large object that came rapidly towards him, but was concealed beneath the long tambouki.
