blue buck, noun phrase

Plurals:
unchanged.
Origin:
South African DutchShow more Translation of South African Dutch blauwbok, see blauwbok.
1. The blue duiker (see duiker sense 1 b), Philantomba monticola. Also attributive.
1809 R. Collins in G.M. Theal Rec. of Cape Col. (1900) VII. 14Abounding in..almost every description of animal from the diminutive blue buck to the towering elephant.
1834 J.C. Chase in A. Steedman Wanderings (1835) II. 205Antelope skins, especially those of the blue buck, the antilope pygmea, a favourite and costly ornament, used for the head dress of the Caffer belles.
1841 B. Shaw Memorials 37Their head-dress, worn only on particular occasions, is made of the fur of the beautiful blue buck.
1893 J. Noble Illust. Off. Handbk of Cape & S. Afr. 62The diminutive bluebuck, not bigger than a rabbit.
1937 H. Sauer Ex Afr. 51The antelope family ranges from the tiny cerulean antelope or blue-buck — so small that one can put him into one’s coat pocket, and found only in the wooded coastal districts of South Africa — to the giant eland.
1949 L. Hunter Afr. Dawn 160Dainty blue buck picked their way along the game paths that meandered through the thick undergrowth.
1975 Friend 30 July 8There stood a bluebuck, surely the daintiest and most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
1981 J.B. Peires House of Phalo 6The main purpose of the hunt was to obtain rare skins (bluebuck, for instance) and ivory for armlets.
2. In historical contexts. The blauwbok (sense 1 a), Hippotragus leucophaeus.
c1902 F.C. Selous in C.J. Cornish Living Animals of World I. 250The bluebuck, which appears to have been entirely confined to the mountainous districts of the Cape Peninsula, became extinct during the first decade of the last century.
1983 R.H.N. Smithers in Skinner & Smithers Mammals of Sn Afr. Subregion 698Some writers who travelled further east and northeast of the Cape..gave drawings of the ‘blue buck’ which were obviously based on the roan...Roberts..went so far as to include this ‘intermediate’ in his list of extinct species as the Karoo blue antelope, Ozanna aethiopica. It is much more likely..that O. aethiopica never actually existed.
1987 T.F.J. Van Rensburg Intro. to Fynbos 51The bluebuck, quagga and Cape Lion have long been extinct.
1989 [see blauwbok sense 1 a].
The blue duiker (see duiker sense 1 b), Philantomba monticola. Also attributive.
The blauwbok (sense 1 a), Hippotragus leucophaeus.
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18091987

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bluebottle, nounn.Blue Bull, noun phrasen. phr.
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