‖peperkorrel, noun
- Forms:
- Also pieper koral.
- Origin:
- AfrikaansShow more Afrikaans, ‘peppercorn’, from peper pepper + korrel corn, grain, tuft of hair.
Usually in the plural : peppercorn hair, see peppercorn.
1926 Report of Rehoboth Commission (UG41–1926) 5The Bushmen are a people of small stature...The hair on the head grows in tufts, at distances from each other, the tufts (known colloquially as ‘peperkorrels’ — pepper-corns) consisting of twisted woolly hairs.
1970 V.R. Vink Informant, FloridaThe old Bantu woman covered the peperkorrels on her head with a scarf.
- Derivatives:
- Hence peperkorrel adjective nonce.a1951 H.C. Bosman in S. Gray Makapan’s Caves (1987) 184The missionary’s child by Mletshwa’s wife would be dark lemon in colour, with its hair less peperkorrel than the average negro’s.

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