deurmekaar, adjective
- Forms:
- Show more Also deurmeka, doormakar, doormekaar.
- Origin:
- Afrikaans, DutchShow more Afrikaans, adaptation of Dutch door malkaar, door malkander (door through + malkaar, malkander one another), dialect variants of door elkaar confused, disordered.
colloquial
1. Confused, muddled; disorganized. See also mekaar.
1871 W.G. Atherstone in T. Gutsche No Ordinary Woman (1966) 24View of de Beers..groups of diggers at work in quaint dresses..tents of every conceivable shape & size..ladies and children and blacks all ‘deur makaar’.
1992 T.M. Pearson Informant, Knysna‘Deurmekaar’ is becoming popular with English speakers, as is ‘khokos’ for insects..(also, in Natal, ‘Nunus’).
2. combination
deurmekaarbos /-ˌbɔs/, plural deurmekaarbosse /-ˌbɔsə/, [Afrikaans, bos bush; see quotation 1966], the shrub Ehretia rigida of the Boraginaceae (forget-me-not family); Cape lilac sense (b), see Cape sense 2 a; puzzle bush.
1932 C.R. Van der Merwe in Farming in S. Afr. Mar. 495The locality is covered with a fairly dense growth of shrubs, such as ‘noorsdoring’, ‘deurmekaarbos’,..etc.
1972 Palmer & Pitman Trees of Sn Afr. III. 1945The specific name means ‘rigid’, and is a good description of the tree. So is the most widely used of its common names, ‘deurmekaarbos’ or ‘tangled bush’.
Confused, muddled; disorganized.
a commotion, a mishap.
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