haasbek, noun and & adjective
- Origin:
- AfrikaansShow more Afrikaans, ‘rabbit’s-mouth’, haas rabbit, hare + bek beak, muzzle.
A. noun , plural haasbekke/-bekə//-bɛkə/.
1. rare. see quotation.
1955 L.G. Green Karoo 227Every man on the..farms patrols the..dam walls..looking for the tell-tale gaps called haasbekke and the holes made by moles and rats.
2. colloquial. A toothless or gap-toothed person.
1970 C. Roberts Informant, Bloemfontein, Free StateThe little boy is a haasbek (without some or all teeth).
1973 Beeton & Dorner in Eng. Usage in Sn Afr. Vol.4 No.1, 57Haasbek,..lit.: rabbit’s mouth, expression used when young children first lose their front teeth.
B. adjective colloquial. Toothless; gap-toothed. Also figurative.
1969 Personality 5 JuneWalk around toothless for a few months. In South Africa this is called ‘going haasbek’.
1980 Weekend Post 4 Oct. 14Poor Ali — floating like an ostrich, stinging like a haasbek bee...And,..at Madison Square Garden a year earlier, he was even then floating like an ostrich and stinging like a haasbek bee.
see quotation.
A toothless or gap-toothed person.
Toothless; gap-toothed. Also figurative.
Chrome
Firefox
Internet Explorer
Safari