oom, noun

/ʊəm/
Forms:
Formerly also om.
Origin:
Dutch, AfrikaansShow more Dutch (later Afrikaans), ‘uncle’, used respectfully of or to an adult male.
‘Uncle’, not necessarily referring to a blood relation. Cf. oompie. See also Tante.
Note:
In South African English, usually employed to represent the idiom of Afrikaans, or when referring to an Afrikaans-speaker.
1. Used as a title, with a name. Usually with initial capital.
a. A respectful and affectionate title for an older man; uncle sense 1 a. Cf. oompie sense 2 b.
Note:
Usually, but not always, with a first name.
1822 W.J. Burchell Trav. I. 433Old Lucas, or as he was more familiarly called, Oom Hans (Uncle Hans), now turned back with us.
1889 H.A. Bryden Kloof & Karroo 42Mr. Pieter Maynier, familiarly called by Graaff Reinetters, ‘Oom Piet’ (Oom, or uncle, being a term of affection in South Africa).
1937 C.R. Prance Tante Rebella’s Saga 29Oom Jakob in middle age was firmly established as ‘Oom’ to every burgher young enough to be his nephew or his son.
1965 S. Dederick Tickey 38‘Look here,’ he said aloud, ‘don’t keep calling me Mr Van Heerden all the time. Call me Oom — Oom Casper’.
c1965 State of S. Afr. 1965 106Family ties, even among distant relatives, are strong and it is a common practice for young South Africans to refer to elderly persons as Oom (uncle) and Tante (aunt) as a token of respect.
1974 Drum 8 Apr. 7Rather than part with his 400 hectare farm and dairy cattle, Oom Freddie said that he would become a subject of the Africans who run Lebowa.
1982 Sunday Times 18 July 11These are just some of the many facets of the man who eventually, as State President, was known affectionately to thousands of South Africans as ‘Oom Blackie’.
1982 Drum July 82Businessman Mohale M— denies he financed ‘Oom Piet’ M— and his rebel group in their bid to oust the Orlando Pirates leadership.
1987 Learn & Teach No.2, 1When we got to her house, we found Oom Jantjie Keele with her. Both Mma Diniso and Oom Jantjie have lived in Sharpeville for many years.
1988 O. Oberholzer Ariesfontein to ZuurfonteinI love to travel and look...To look so far that it hurts, to listen and watch old Oom Hennie tell a story thru his face, to rub khakibos between my hands..and smell Africa.
1993 Weekend Post 26 June 13 (letter)Early in 1970 a church elder said to me: ‘Kwedini, you will never satisfy all the people.’ These words of the late Oom Cronje Vellem came to mind when I read the headline ‘Downpour the worst in Port Elizabeth for eight years’.
b. Special Combinations
Oom Jannie, oubaas sense 4;
Oom Paul, an affectionate name for Paul Kruger, President of the old Transvaal Republic; also attributive; hence Oom Paulite obsolete, a nickname for a Transvaler.
1923 Radio Times (U.K.) 28 Sept. 8‘Oom Jannie’, as he (sc. Smuts) is known among his own people.
1882 C.L. Norris-Newman With Boers in Tvl 385Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger,..‘Oom (Uncle) Paul,’ as he is affectionately called.
1888 Cape Punch 29 Feb. 117I am Oom Paul, the Cromwell of South Africa.
1888 Cape Punch 7 Mar. 140K stands for Kruger, best known as Oom Paul.
1897 G.A. Parker S. Afr. Sports 74The event of the week’s football was the final match between the holders, Western Province and the Transvaal — the former up to this fixture leading the ‘Oom Paulites’ by one point.
1898 Cape Argus (Weekly ed.) 2 Feb. 36I am quite certain..that if Oom Paul gets in,..this prominent Transvaal official can afford to put his thumb up to his nose.
1900 H.C. Hillegas Oom Paul’s People 141There was less formality and red tape in meeting ‘Oom Paul’ (sc. Kruger) than would be required to have a word with Queen Victoria’s butcher or President McKinley’s office-boy.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 349Oom,..This Dutch word is often used in South Africa when addressing an elderly man, as denoting respect; e.g. Oom Paul, the ordinary designation of the President of the late Transvaal Republic.
1923 B. Ronan Forty S. Afr. Yrs 169I..had plenty of opportunities of seeing Oom Paul..and will not readily forget the sound of his deep, raucous voice as he addressed his burghers from the top of an ox-wagon.
1946 T. Macdonald Ouma Smuts 30The beloved Oom Paul, uncle to all the people.
1955 L.G. Green Karoo 13I can visualise many a hospitable voorkamer adorned with Biblical texts and portraits either of Oom Paul or Queen Victoria.
1984 Frontline Feb. 39There was place for guitars as well as for violins, short skirts as well as Voortrekker kappies, long hair as well as Oom Paul beards.
2. Used as a respectful form of address or reference to any man older than the speaker. Cf. oompie sense 2 a, uncle sense 1 b.
Note:
Sometimes substituted for the second person pronoun ‘you’, reflecting a respectful form of address in Afrikaans (see quotations 1976 and 1983).
1838 [see neef sense 1].
1871 J. Mackenzie Ten Yrs N. of Orange River 64It was not then unusual for a Dutchman to give his hand in greeting to a Griqua, and call him ‘oom’ (uncle), or ‘neef’ (nephew) — in short, to treat him as an equal.
[1880 E.L. Price Jrnls (1956) 409The Boers have a way of calling any gentleman to whom they speak ‘Uncle’ — token of respect — and any lady, ‘Auntie’. ‘Om’ is uncle, & ‘Tanta’ is Aunt.]
1883 O.E.A. Schreiner Story of Afr. Farm 22We deal not in titles. Every one is Tanta and Oom — aunt and uncle.
1888 Cape Punch 1 Aug. 39‘All there, Oom?’ ‘All there, Tal,’ replied Oom, ‘I carefully counted them’.
1924 G. Baumann in Baumann & Bright Lost Republic (1940) 119‘Oom, were you not afraid of the Zulus?’ I asked. ‘No, they were all tame [mak] by then.’
1926 P. Smith Beadle (1929) 9In the long Aangenaam valley there was no man who called him friend, no child who called him Oom.
1976 A. Delius Border 136Never fear! I will not forsake my people. But Oom must understand these are times when much is changing.
1982 E. Prov. Herald 20 Sept. 8On my farm the klonkies used the word ‘master’. If they were of primary school age they called me ‘oom’ even though I wasn’t their mother’s brother.
1983 A. Sparks in J. Crwys-Williams S. Afr. Despatches (1989) 446‘Oom,’ it must be noted, means uncle, and everybody in these parts is called either uncle or aunt as a term of respect. The proper mode of address is in the third person. ‘Good morning, uncle,’ says the youngster in short pants at the farm gate. ‘Will uncle please drive straight up the road and park uncle’s car under the black wattles.’
1989 B. Ronge in Sunday Times 3 Dec. 30One word in particular grated on my ear when the narrator referred to the patriarch as ‘Oom’ which is utterly alien to the English idiom. But it is utterly characteristic of the Afrikaans idiom, and emblematic of those role perceptions and assumed positions of hypocritical power and deference that are, after all, the subject of this play.
1990 G. Slovo Ties of Blood 208‘Be silent, oom,’ he commanded, ‘and nothing will happen to you. Otherwise...’ He moved the revolver up the man’s skull.
1990 Sunday Times 18 Mar. 3‘I think my father first started to hate me when I called him “oom” instead of dad,’ Flip recalled wistfully.
3. Used as a common noun: a man, especially an older man; uncle sense 2. Cf. oompie sense 1.
1868 [see neef sense 1].
1883 O.E.A. Schreiner Story of Afr. Farm 257At the farmhouses where he stopped the ‘ooms’ and ‘tantes’ remembered clearly the spider with its four grey horses.
1898 W.C. Scully Vendetta 25Many a bulky bottle of nasty but innocuous mixture did he prescribe to amplitudinous tanta or corpulent oom, whose only complaint was the natural result of too much exercise of the jaw-bones and too little of the arms and legs.
1914 L.H. Brinkman Breath of Karroo 83‘Ma, why is that Oom talking such a lot?’ referring to the reader.
1914 L.H. Brinkman Breath of Karroo 85Ma, the Oom is throwing water in my face!
a1951 H.C. Bosman in L. Abrahams Unto Dust (1963) 123The Oom would knock out the ash from his pipe on to his veldskoen and he would proceed to relate..a tale of terror or of high romance.
1976 V. Rosenberg Sunflower 150A child came to tell her..that there was an ‘oom’ outside making enquiries about the next-door neighbour.
1977 Family Radio & TV 19 Sept. 5There was even one oom in the Marico district who used onions [to make ‘mampoer’]. The result was stronger than battery acid.
1981 Sunday Times 1 Nov. 43Driving force behind the team of tannies — plus the occasional oom..is the dominee’s wife.
1983 A. Sparks in J. Crwys-Williams S. Afr. Despatches (1989) 446They come, many of the ‘ooms’ and ‘tannies’, in Mercedes-Benzes, for the Afrikaner is no longer the underdog in South Africa that he once was.
1987 ‘K. De Boer’ in Frontline Apr. 36The blue-blooded Afrikaners of the HNP, the old Ooms en Tannies of the deep platteland, faces lined by the sun and the worry, their history near to the surface of their pale eyes.
1987 Sunday Times 21 June 9A tannie has beaten the ooms at their own game. She is the Witblitz King of South Africa.
1990 Personality 1 Jan. 44Another oom was not so lucky and rode his bakkie into a ditch.
1990 C. Leonard in Weekly Mail 2 Nov. 17The congregants filed past: elderly ooms and tannies, black families, white families and domestic workers.
‘Uncle’, not necessarily referring to a blood relation.
A respectful and affectionate title for an older man; uncle sense 1 a.
Used as a respectful form of address or reference to any man older than the speaker.
a man, especially an older man; uncle sense 2.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

18221993

Browse Related Words

By Category

Titles and Modes of Address

By Origin

Dutch
Afrikaans

By Usage

obsolete or obsolescent
onslaught, nounn.oompie, nounn.
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary Unit for South African English