kraal

WOTD – 16 November 2014

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kraal

Wikipedia

kraal (plural kraals)

In Central and Southern Africa, a small rural community.
- 1861, Charles John Andersson, “chapter VII”, in Lake Ngami, page 89:
  Onanis is the permanent residence of a kraal of very poor Hill-Damaras, who subsist chiefly upon the few wild roots which their sterile neighborhood produces.
- 1979, André Brink, A Dry White Season, Vintage, published 1998, page 88:
  ‘The paraffin box covered with newsprint, and the primus, and the bucket standing on the floor, and a photo of our kraal’s chief on the wall.’
In Central and Southern Africa, a rural village of huts surrounded by a stockade.
- 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus, published 2010, page 6:
  A kraal was a homestead and usually included a simple fenced-in enclosure for animals, fields for growing crops, and one or more thatched huts.
An enclosure for livestock.
- 2000 July 3, Jonathan Amos, “'Funny creature' toast of Botswana”, in BBC News Online:
  The animal, which is now six years old, was born naturally from the mating of a female goat with a male sheep sharing the same kraal.

rural African community

rural African village of huts surrounded by a stockade

enclosure for livestock

kraal (third-person singular simple present kraals, present participle kraaling, simple past and past participle kraaled)

(transitive) To enclose (livestock) within a kraal or stockade.
- 1861, Charles John Andersson, Lake Ngami, chapter XXVIII, page 343:
  […] he knew that one of these beasts was in the habit of harassing the goat-kids, which, for better security, he had kraaled against the wall of the house.