pillar, noun
- Origin:
- EnglishShow more English pillar (figurative) ‘a fact or principle which is a main support or stay of something’ (OED).
In the phrases pillar of apartheid, pillars of apartheid in historical contexts, a name given to (any of) several Acts which were central to the administration of apartheid, especially the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act (group area noun phrase sense 2 a), and the Land Acts (see Land Act).
1989 Reader’s Digest Illust. Hist. of S. Afr. 376The next pillar of apartheid was the Group Areas Act.
1991 TV1, 6 June (News)The Population Registration Act will be relegated to history...Other pillars of apartheid collapsed when the Group Areas Act and the two Land Acts were scrapped.
In the phrases pillar of apartheid, pillars of apartheida name given to (any of) several Acts which were central to the administration of apartheid, especially the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act (group area noun phrase sense 2 a), and the Land Acts (see Land Act).
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