knorhaan, noun
- Forms:
- Show more Also knoorhaan, knoraan, knorhaen, knorhan, knorrhaan, knorr-haen.
- Plurals:
- unchanged, knorhaans, or (rarely) knorhane/ˈknɔrˌhɑːnə/.
- Origin:
- DutchShow more Transferred use of Dutch knorhaan, see korhaan.
1.
a. obsolescent. korhaan sense 1 a. Also attributive.
1731 G. Medley tr. of P. Kolben’s Present State of Cape of G.H. II. 139The Knorhan. Among the Wild Fowls at the Cape, there is a Sort of Birds, a Male of which the Europeans there call Knor-Cock: A Female they call Knor-Hen. These Birds are a Sort of Centries to the other Birds at the Cape.
1948 H.V. Morton In Search of S. Afr. 262Upon this road there was..a bird known as the korhaan, or knorhaan, the ‘scolding cock,’ and a good name it is, for I think the meercats employ him as a watchman!
b. With qualifying word denoting a particular species:
dikkop knorhaan [Afrikaans dikkop, dik thick + kop head], the vaal knorhaan, (see korhaan sense 1 b), E. vigorsii;
1867 E.L. Layard Birds of S. Afr. 284The Vaal Knorhaan is common on the Karroo...If it fancies itself unobserved, it will suddenly squat...So great is its similarity to the soil and stones among which it is found that it is next to impossible to detect it.
2. [see quotation 1986.] Any of several marine fishes. a. Any of several species of gurnard of the genus Chelidonichthys (family Triglidae); korhaan sense 2. b. Any of several species of grunter of the genus Pomadasys (family Haemulidae); see also tigerfish sense 2 b.
[1986 Smith & Heemstra Smiths’ Sea Fishes 486The American name ‘sea robins’ and Afrikaans ‘knorhane’ come from the bird-like chirping noise some species make when they are taken from the water.]
korhaan sense 1 a. Also attributive.
Any of several species of grunter of the genus Pomadasys (family Haemulidae);
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