kameeldoring, noun

/kaˈmɪəlˌdʊərəŋ//kəˈmɪəlˌdʊərəŋ/
Forms:
cameel-doorn, camile-dornShow more Also cameel-doorn, camile-dorn, kameeldoorn, kameeldorn.
Origin:
South African Dutch, DutchShow more South African Dutch, kameel, kameelperd giraffe + doring (Dutch doorn) thorn.
camel-thorn. Also attributive.
1822 W.J. Burchell Trav. I. 453A large solitary tree of Kameel-doorn (camel thorn, or tree upon which the Camelopardalis generally browses), the first I had seen of the species, was standing here.
1839 W.C. Harris Wild Sports 241The range of its habitat is exclusively confined to those regions in which the species of mimosa termed mokaala, or kameel-doorn, is abundant.
1844 J. Backhouse Narr. of Visit 441The Kameeldoorn, Acacia Giraffe, is a handsome tree; in the places formerly inhabitated by the Giraffe, the trunks of these trees are naked as high as the Giraffe could browse off the branches.
1864 T. Baines Explor. in S.-W. Afr. 24The mimosa, the kameel-doorn, (camel-thorn), and a tree like the shedak of Australia..grew among the reeds that fringed the sandy bed of the Swa-Kop.
1872 C.A. Payton Diamond Diggings 18Tents of the diggers are scattered in all directions over the ‘veldt’, and are generally pitched near one of the numerous kameeldorn (camel-thorn) trees.
[1880 E.F. Sandeman Eight Months in Ox-Waggon 292The shade of some thick kameel-thorns, so called because they are taller than any of the other varieties of mimosa, and also have a shoot which the long-necked animals are specially partial to.]
1917 R. Marloth Dict. of Common Names of Plants 45Kameeldoorn, (Camel thorn). Acacia Giraffae. A stately tree of the Kalahari region, with very hard, dark-brown wood and nutritious pods.
1920 F.C. Cornell Glamour of Prospecting 25Larger trees..called locally cameel doorn, a species of thorny acacia, which is usually found in or near watercourses.
1948 O. Walker Kaffirs Are Lively 90The whole of this huge magisterial district..is naught but a wilderness of cameeldoorn — camel thorn — and hook-and-stick bushes.
1957 L.G. Green Beyond City Lights 182An inquiry was ordered, and the Bastards gathered under the kameeldoring trees outside the magistrate’s office at Clanwilliam, awaiting the proceedings nervously.
1981 S. Afr. Panorama Dec. 5The flat landscape is relieved only by kameeldoring (camelthorn) trees and the communal nests of social weaver birds suspended from telegraph poles.
1989 F.G. Butler Tales from Old Karoo 37He travelled hopefully, for several weeks, south, always south — out of the mopani, into the cameeldorings and sand, and then the Karoo-like landscape near Keetmanshoop.
1990 Weekend Post 6 Oct. (Leisure) 4The sweet scent of the kameeldoorn or acacia blossom is typical of the lowveld.
1992 C. Norman in Sunday Times 20 Sept. (Mag. Sect.) 31In the centre of our dry riverbed, kameeldorings put down deep roots to tap underground water sources.
camel-thorn. Also attributive.
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Dutch
kameel, nounn.kanalah, verb intransitivev.
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