Sunday, 11 August 2013

Kloof


Word of the Day for Sunday, August 11, 2013


Kloof \kloof\, noun:

(in South Africa) a deep glen; ravine.

There are the sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries, down which the rivers sparkle...
-- H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines, 1885

Take any poor Tommy, out at his picket on the bare hillside or rocky kloof, either blistering in 104-degree heat or shivering under his waterproof sheet, and he could easily believe it so.
-- Giles Foden, Ladysmith, 1999

Kloof came to English in the 1700s from the Dutch word meaning "cleft."

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