blik, noun

/blək/
Origin:
AfrikaansShow more Afrikaans, tin.
‖1. blikkie.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 67Small tin cans, used by labourers to carry tea or coffee in, are known as bliks.
1920 R.Y. Stormberg Mrs Pieter de Bruyn 89A native working in a garden had thoughtlessly thrown a blik (tin) over the fence, and this had hit the horse sharply on its eye.
2.
a. Tin, the metal. Also attributive.
1973 M.A. Cook Cape Kitchen 109 (caption)Two graters for lemon rind, nutmeg etc. Made of blik.
1981 Frontline May 15‘Blik’ is Afrikaans for tin and is a reference to the homemade tin guitar used by the Coloureds of the Western Cape. It was with a slightly more sophisticated version — but also blik — that Kramer began his musical career at the age of twelve.
1988 K. Ngwenya in Drum Mar. 92Jonathan Butler was born 25 years ago in Athlone, Cape Town. It is where he made his first ‘blik’ guitar — an old fish oil tin strung with nylon fishing gut.
1990 E. Holtzhausen in Sunday Times 16 Dec. 7The pint-sized singer whose ‘blik’ guitar and Boland ballads have become as synonymous with South Africa as biltong and potjiekos.
b. transferred sense
i. In full blik music: a style of popular music featuring a metal-bodied guitar as accompaniment to the voice, associated especially with composer and musician David Kramer. Also attributive.
1981 Frontline May 15Kramer’s music is as difficult to label as the man himself. ‘But if you have to give it a name let’s call it blik’.
1982 M. Swift in D. Kramer Short Back & SidesForeword, The raucous, aching strains of David Kramer’s ‘blik’ are belting into the homes of all South Africans.
1982 Fair Lady 24 Feb. 95Kramer’s current obsession is with a sound he calls ‘blik’ — the sound you get from cheap guitars...He has listened to many of Hugh Tracey’s recordings of blik music.
1986 D. Kramer in Sunday Times 5 Jan. 9When I started out, people often used to ask me what my music was called. I told them it was ‘blik’ — you know, like a blik guitar or banjo.
1988 D. Kramer in Flying Springbok Apr. 27It was a creative relationship between David Kramer — king of Boland blik — and Taliep Petersen.
1989 D. Kramer in ADA No.7, 9Because I was talking about ‘blik’ music, I went to America and came back with a silver guitar.
ii. combination
blik-based nonce, founded on this style of music.
1986 M. Le Chat in Sunday Times 20 July (Mag. Sect.) 32He..embarked on a blik-based career that saw him end up as a social commentator who was ‘almal se pêl’.
Tin, the metal.
In full blik music:a style of popular music featuring a metal-bodied guitar as accompaniment to the voice, associated especially with composer and musician David Kramer. Also attributive.
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19131990

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blik-based

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bles-mole, nounn.blik-huis, nounn.
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