naar, adjective
/nɑː(r)/
- Origin:
- Afrikaans.
colloquial
1. Unpleasant, disagreeable, nauseating.
1900 M. Marquard Lett. from Boer Parsonage (1967) 65It is too naar that a man who has shown this house so much kindness during our long time of sickness last year, should be turned into an enemy of the land now: one’s heart is sore.
1990 J. Naidoo Coolie Location 45I knew my mother..was going to go out and sprinkle the liquid dung over the swept portion of the pavement...I asked her point blank: why was she doing something so naar.
Unpleasant, disagreeable, nauseating.
Queasy, sick, nauseated.
- Derivatives:
- Hence naar intransitive verb, to smell unpleasant.1986 L.A. Barnes in Eng. Usage in Sn Afr. Vol.17 No.2, 2It’s naaring ‘It smells bad’. My socks are naaring ‘My socks smell’.[1986 L.A. Barnes in Eng. Usage in Sn Afr. Vol.17 No.2, 3Whereas the word is only used as an adjective in Afrikaans, it has been turned into a verb in S[outh] A[frican] I[ndian] E[nglish]. (The word has been forced to fit an English syntactic pattern.)]

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