‖kombers, noun

/kɔmˈbɛrs/
Forms:
cambeass, comberseShow more Also cambeass, comberse, cumbess, kimbaars, kombāars, kombaase, kombars, kombarse, kombasse, komberse.
Plurals:
komberse/kɔmˈbɛrsə/, kombersen, or unchanged.
Origin:
Afrikaans, DutchShow more Afrikaans, from Dutch kombaars coverlet, rug.
1. kaross sense 1.
1824 W.J. Burchell Trav. II. 175This kombáars, or coverlet, is a genuine South-African manufacture, being nothing more than a Hottentot karóss of large dimensions; but which has been adopted by the boors in every district. [Source Note: This word, agreeably to Colonial pronunciation, would be written by an Englishman, Combáirce.]
1830 T. Pringle in Cape Lit. Gaz. 16 June 2From Keiskahama’s farthest springs, Where savage tribes pursue their game, His kombaars tied with leathern strings, This hunter of the woestyn came.
1850 R.G.G. Cumming Hunter’s Life I. 186In the evening I took my pillow and ‘komberse’, or skin-blanket, to the margin of a neighbouring vley, where I had observed doe blesboks drink.
1851 N.J. Merriman Cape Jrnls (1957) 231The wolf’s nightly howl, and quick jackal’s cries Are music as under the kombarse he lies.
1855 G.H. Mason Life with Zulus 148A few of these [people] bore traces of civilisation, being partially clothed and able to speak broken English, the rest being wrapped in their ‘cumbess’s’ (Caffre blanket).
a1858 J. Goldswain Chron. I. 20We saw thear several Hottentot women from the age of 18 to 25 years old with nothing on but the sheep skin cambeass..on.
1872 ‘Y.’ in Cape Monthly Mag. V. Sept. 183Most certainly, when night came, far from any ‘place,’ he would be thankful for the comfort of a ‘kaross’ or ‘kombaars,’ without troubling his sleepy senses about the meaning of the word.
1913 [see sense 2].
2. A blanket.
[1870 H.H. Dugmore Reminisc. of Albany Settler 22The qualities of the linebayi and the wolkombersen were elaborately discussed.]
1878 T.J. Lucas Camp Life & Sport 137The bed’s..clothing consisted of..a felt comberse or quilt sewn up in a sheet of cotton print and apparently never washed.
1896 M.A. Carey-Hobson At Home in Tvl 346The central curtain was taken down, the bedding on the kartel made level, and a large coloured kombasse, or coverlid, spread over it.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 126Comberse, A blanket, rug.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 274Komberse,..A rug, blanket; sometimes a kaross is so styled.
1979 Daily Dispatch 22 Oct. 6The blanket tip came from an elderly member of the family who spent her days almost motionless wrapped in an old kombers.
A blanket.
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Afrikaans
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kom, verb intransitivev.kombi, combi, nounn.
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