doeksteen, noun

Origin:
South African Dutch, DutchShow more South African Dutch, ‘asbestos’, from Dutch doek cloth + steen stone.
obs., Mineralogy
Blue asbestos, a fibrous variety of riebeckite mined as a source of asbestos. Cf. hawk’s-eye.
[1815 J. Campbell Trav. in S. Afr. 272We had a little boy, named Dookstens, (or Asbestos,) travelling with us.]
1822 W.J. Burchell Trav. I. 333A production of these mountains, which, observing to have the singular property of becoming, on being rubbed between the fingers, a soft cotton-like substance, resembling that which they made from their old handkerchiefs for the purpose of tinder, they have named Doeksteen. (Handkerchief-stone, or Cloth-stone)...The Doeksteen is a kind of Asbestos, of a blue color...I made a drawing of the remarkable laminated rocks, between the thin horizontal layers of which it is found.
1912 E. London Dispatch 17 May 6 (Pettman)The blue asbestos mountains (Doeksteen of the Hottentots) just opposite Prieska.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 147Doeksteen,..The by no means inappropriate Dutch name for the Blue crocidolite.
Blue asbestos, a fibrous variety of riebeckite mined as a source of asbestos.
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obsolete or obsolescent
doekie, nounn.doekum, nounn.
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