biltong, noun
- Forms:
-
α. Show more billtong, bill-tongue, bill-tung, biltong, biltongue;
β. Show more belltong, belting, beltong, beltongue, bel tong, bel tongue;
γ. bultong, bültong.
- Origin:
- South African Dutch, DutchShow more South African Dutch, from Dutch bil buttock, rump (from which the meat is often taken) + tong tongue (referring to the long, narrow shape of the strips of meat).
1. Salted dried meat in strips, usually lean beef, venison, or ostrich-meat, but sometimes other game, or fish; tassal sense a. Also attributive, and transferred sense. See also bokkem.
- Note:
- Usually noncount, but see α quotation 1890, and γ quotation 1883.
α.
1815 A. Plumptre tr. of H. Lichtenstein’s Trav. in Sn Afr. (1930) II. 77He lived almost entirely upon dried mutton and biltong.
1991 Leisure Bks Catal. Apr.–June 19Recipes are included, such as biltong quiche, biltong potbread,..Traditional SA fare at its very best.
β.
a1827 D. Carmichael in W.J. Hooker Botanical Misc. (1831) II. 273In lieu of bread, they sometimes use the flesh of various animals, salted and dried in the sun...Which they call ‘Belltong’.
1898 G. Nicholson 50 Yrs 251Their favourite ‘naama’ (meat), with which the trees and bushes around were festooned in strips, in process of becoming ‘belting’ in the dry and fervid atmosphere.
γ.
1883 O.E.A. Schreiner Story of Afr. Farm 86Did not Tant’ Sannie keep in the loft ‘bultongs’ and nice smoked sausages?
1961 D. Bee Children of Yesterday 16He was eating a piece of sun-dried ostrich meat, known as bultong.
2. combinations
1979 Daily Dispatch 12 May 6The China Syndrome..is more than..simple-minded entertainment. The subject is a hot one beyond this biltong curtain.
1949biltong jackal: [see quot. above].
Salted dried meat in strips, usually lean beef, venison, or ostrich-meat, but sometimes other game, or fish; tassal sense a. Also attributive, and transferred sense.
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