rand, noun

/rænd//rant//rɒnt/
Forms:
randt, rantShow more Formerly also randt, rant, rantz, ront.
Origin:
Afrikaans, DutchShow more Afrikaans, from Dutch rand edge, border.
1.
a. Plural rands, rande/-ə/, occasionally (formerly) rantzes. A long (rocky) hillock; an area of high, sloping ground; cf. randjie.
1839 J. Collett Diary. II. 27 MayFinished making New Kralls to day on Willow fountain rant.
1846 J.M. Bowker Speeches & Sel. (1864) 223The Kafirs mustered on the height where the attack was...The whole of the rant was black with them and their horses.
1882 J. Nixon Among Boers 118At the base..were a multitude of stony rantzes. The term rantz..is applied to the huge ridges..which cross the veld in all directions, looking like railway embankments in the process of construction.
1882 S. Heckford Lady Trader in Tvl 361Just as I got to the highest part of the randt, the wind and rain came whirling up.
1891 B. Mitford Romance of Cape Frontier 23He is standing on the top of the randt for a brief blow after his exertions.
1900 A.H. Keane Boer States: Land & People 22We can here speak of ‘rands’, that is, ridges of moderate elevation, which, however, are sometimes high enough to form water-partings.
1947 H.C. Bosman Mafeking Rd (1969) 74I shall never forget the scene..in the early morning, when there were still shadows on the rante.
1968 Farmer’s Weekly 3 Jan. 7The veld consists of iron stone rante, vleis and sweet Karoo flats.
1980 A.J. Blignaut Dead End Rd 91I could hear the swishing of the grass fifty paces away as the leopard tiptoed on the rand.
b. A common element in place-names, e.g. Fish River Rand, Randburg, Randfontein, Witwatersrand.
[1836 C.L. Stretch Journal. 24 Feb.Descended the Fish river heights called by the Dutch ‘Vis Rivier ront’ and encamped at a stream.]
1914 C. Pettman Notes on S. Afr. Place Names 32Suikerbosch Rand.
1914 C. Pettman Notes on S. Afr. Place Names 32Boschrand.
1989 P.E. Raper Dict. of Sn Afr. Place Names 460Randfontein,..Gold-mining town some 24 km west of Johannesburg...The name is Afrikaans and means ‘ridge fountain’, ‘fountain on the edge’.
2. The Rand [short form of Afrikaans place name Witwatersrand, wit white + watersrand watershed, divide]: a. The gold fields, mining towns, and cities (including Johannesburg) situated along the Witwatersrand gold-reef, in the province of Gauteng. b. This gold-reef. Also attributive. In both senses also called the Reef (see reef sense 2). See also Randlord.
1888 Cape Punch 7 Mar. 136If you just take a trip up to the Randt you’d get a good property in no time.
1890 C. & A.P. Wilson-Moore Diggers’ Doggerel 28Romeo Troilus Giddy McSmack, Surmised that ‘a very consid’rable whack’ Should be paid for his rights in this Government grant, ‘The best Crushing spec,’ he explained, ‘on the Rand’.
1896 P.A. Molteno Sel. from Correspondence (1981) 11What a foolish proposition was Chamberlain’s home rule for the Rand — I’m much relieved that he stated he will not press it.
1900 H.C. Hillegas Oom Paul’s People 5A thousand miles from the Cape of Good Hope, are the gold mines of the Randt, richer than California and more valuable than the Klondike.
1900 H. Butterworth Trav. Tales 57What is the Randt, or Rand? The gold mines of the deserts, a thousand miles north of the Cape of Good Hope, — an underground treasury.
1903 R. Kipling Five Nations 198I’d give the gold o’twenty Rands, (If it was mine) to set ’em free.
1917 S.T. Plaatje Native Life 297Senator General De la Rey..was accidentally shot by a ‘Rand’ policemen on the night of September 15.
1940 F.B. Young City of Gold 437I’ld bet you ten thousand pounds to a farthing..that before twenty years are gone, there’ll be a quarter of a million people living on the Rand.
1941 C.W. De Kiewiet Hist. of S. Afr. 127Maybe new gold-fields as great as the Rand itself.
1941 C.W. De Kiewiet Hist. of S. Afr. 130The belief was strong that South Africa stood on the threshold of other Rands in the Transvaal and in the new lands between the Limpopo and the Zambesi.
1946 S. Cloete Afr. Portraits 269Kimberley had been the magnet which attracted the iron rails till the discovery of gold made the Rand the financial centre of Africa.
1951 Drum Oct. 9Few people who know the facts can have serious doubts about the real causes of crime on the Rand.
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 117Most of the European missions followed their rural converts to the Rand (as the gold fields were called).
1985 V. Martin in S. Afr. Panorama Aug. 45The Sunday Times wrote in its edition of January 23, 1910 — when Johannesburg was 24 years old — that the Rand was ‘a place where people sit in five-guinea chairs and gaze at five shilling pictures’.
1987 C.T. Msimang in S. Afr. Jrnl of Afr. Langs Vol.7 No.3, 82Tsotsitaal is a contact medium which developed when blacks of various ethnic groups were thrown together in the South African cities, especially on the Rand.
c. Special Combinations historical
Rand Revolt, the violent miners’ strike of 1922, which was put down by government troops;
Rand Tram [see quotation 1933], a railway-service linking Johannesburg with the towns of the east and west Rand.
1962 A.P. Cartwright Gold Miners 210Forty years have passed since the ‘Rand Revolt’ was suppressed but the historian still finds it hard to explain the sudden surge of violence that turned a dispute over wages and hours of work into civil war.
1977 Bouch & Haines in R.J. Bouch Infantry in S. Afr. 1652–1976 206The Regiment (sc. Durban Light Infantry) played a crucial role in the suppression of the 1922 Rand Revolt. Called out on 10 March, it was rushed to Johannesburg and on the 12th relieved the police at Brixton ridge, taking 250 revolutionaries prisoner at bayonet point.
1983 J. Cronin Inside 7He was nine when his father came blacklisted home from the 1922 Rand Revolt.
1989 J. Crwys-Williams S. Afr. Despatches 229The 1922 Strike, or the Rand Revolt as it is more popularly known, was precipitated by the British government’s announcement towards the close of 1921 that it intended returning to the gold standard at the parity enjoyed before the start of the 1918–24 conflict.
1926 M. Nathan S. Afr. from Within 67A concession was granted to the Netherland Railway Company to construct a line (then known as the ‘Rand Tram’) between Springs, at the eastern end of the Reef, and Krugersdorp, at its western end.
1933 W.H.S. Bell Bygone Days 312The company owned 717 miles of railway (including the Rand Tram). [Source Note: In the very early days of the Rand Tram — a railway extending from Johannesburg to Boksburg on the east and Krugersdorp on the west — the Boers were much averse to railways and in order to obtain Volksraad approval to the construction and working of the line, it was called a ‘tramway’.]
3.
a. Often with initial capital. Plural unchanged, or rands. The unit of decimal currency adopted in 1961, replacing the pound, and originally equivalent to ten shillings sterling; buck noun3; maphepha sense 1 a; R noun1. Also attributive.
1959 [see R n.1].
1961 Times (U.K.) 27 Jan. 19There was a boom on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange last night...The occasion was the second dress rehearsal for trading in rand and cents when decimalization overtakes South Africa on the second Tuesday of next month.
1961 Star 14 Feb. 1The pronunciation of rand is still so fluid you could drown in it. It varied from rand (like hand) to runt, raint, rarnd and rent. Most people still say ‘10 bob’.
1970 J. McIntosh Stonefish 35He let himself go out of control, spinning faster and faster, littering the sandbank with three thousand rand.
1973 Sunday Times 9 Dec. (Mag. Sect.) 10With point or dash, not comma, fill The space on cheques to pay the bill, And always put into his hands Your grocer’s cash in cents and rands.
1982 Daily Dispatch 10 Mar. 1The exchange rate of the rand slipped below $1 for the first time in history.
1986 Sunday Star 15 June 1If tomorrow passes without serious trouble the rand will recover from its steep slide, say foreign-exchange dealers.
1989 B. Ronge in Sunday Times 20 Aug. (Mag. Sect.)Rands that are worth less than single-ply toilet-tissues and a balsa-wood economy.
1989 F.G. Butler Tales from Old Karoo 142Anything over 100 000 is an impressive figure, except in bankrupt currencies, like the Rand.
1991 E. Prov. Herald 17 May 27Make friends with the locals and for a few rand the hired help will lighten the load.
b. With qualifying word:
blocked rand historical, from 1961 to 1976, rands held in South Africa by non-residents, permitted to be invested only in particular types of securities, and not to be withdrawn from the country except under certain conditions (superseded by the securities rand system, see below);
commercial rand, the rand at the ordinary foreign exchange rate, applicable to import and export transactions and to international trade by South African residents;
financial rand historical, (the unit of) investment currency for non-residents, used also by emigrants and immigrants for their settling-in allowances; finrand;
securities rand historical, the rand proceeds from the local sale and redemption of South African securities and other investments owned by non-residents. Also attributive. See also Kruger sense 2 a.
1963 Annual Econ. Report (S. Afr. Reserve Bank) 38The Treasury..was replacing the 5 per cent five-year blocked rand bonds with new 3¼ per cent three-year bonds.
1986 R.M. Gidlow in Securities Markets No.1 3rd Quarter 37Blocked rand could..be utilised to purchase quoted government, municipal and public utility stocks with a maturity of five years or more.
1988 P.J. Mohr et al. Prac. Guide to S. Afr. Econ. Indicators 22This blocked rand arrangement was..a form of exchange control.
1989 R.M. Gidlow in Econ. Focus Nov.Two-tier exchange rate arrangements in South Africa originated..in 1961 when the blocked rand system was introduced.
1982 Growth June 28If the discount were falling because the financial rand was appreciating, instead of resulting from a decline in the commercial rand, the authorities would doubtless feel differently.
1986 R.M. Gidlow in Securities Markets No.1 3rd Quarter 39The existence of a discount on the financial rand may..affect adversely the operation of leads and lags in the commercial rand market.
1986 Sunday Star 8 June 6Long-term foreign holders of South African bonds are still entitled to receive their interest in commercial rands.
1988 P.J. Mohr et al. Prac. Guide to S. Afr. Econ. Indicators 22The commercial rand applies to all international trade between South Africa and the rest of the world, i.e. to all transactions recorded in the current account of the balance of payments.
1989 E. Prov. Herald 16 Mar. 10To abolish the financial rand now would simply mean that the country would lose much by way of foreign reserves, and moreover would have to accept a sharp depreciation of the commercial rand.
1993 Financial Mail 23 Apr. 63The dual system of a financial and a commercial rand is an integral part of exchange control and was intended to bring foreign investment to SA through the discount offered on initial investments.
1980 Financial Mail 16 Jan. 15With the fantastic run in the gold price, the financial rand has increased sharply.
1981 Rand Daily Mail 4 Feb. 1The ‘financial’ rand is currency sold abroad at a discount..to encourage investment in South Africa.
1985 P. Van Niekerk in Weekly Mail 6 Sept. 5The financial rand was reinstated..to prevent capital flowing out of the country.
1985 N. Bruce in E. Prov. Herald 2 Sept. 1The local sale proceeds of shares by non-residents..will have to be retained in South Africa as financial rand balances.
1986 R.M. Gidlow in Securities Markets No.1 3rd Quarter 37In January 1979..the financial rand market..became accessible to non-resident investors for the purchase of a proprietor’s interest in a business in South Africa, and not just listed securities.
1987 Pretoria News 18 June 5International companies have been challenged to..use their Financial Rands to buy housing for their employees.
1988 P.J. Mohr et al. Prac. Guide to S. Afr. Econ. Indicators 23The financial rand rate is determined by non-residents’ demand for and supply of South African assets.
1990 C. Wilson in Independent (U.K.) 12 Feb. 8The financial rand, which trades at a discount to the commercial rand,..is widely seen as a barometer of South Africa’s economic health.
1991 Flying Springbok May 133While no limit has been placed on the value of commercial property which may be purchased (via a South Africa-registered company) with financial rand, a change was announced in September 1990 in respect of the financial rand purchase of residential property.
1993 Africa S. & E. July 14Without the protective cover provided by the financial rand mechanism, the effective level of foreign net disinvestment would..undoubtedly have been higher.
1994 H. Marks on Radio Algoa 30 Sept.The rumours about the abolition of the financial rand had the market in a tizz yesterday.
1977 Rand Daily Mail 18 June 5The securities rand rate yesterday was 73 US cents buyers and 74,75c sellers.
1986 R.M. Gidlow in Securities Markets No.1 3rd Quarter 37Transfers of securities rand could take place directly from one securities rand account to another.
1988 P.J. Mohr et al. Prac. Guide to S. Afr. Econ. Indicators 23The securities rand..could only be used to buy shares and certain government securities and semi-gilts, often at a large discount relative to the commercial rand.
1993 J. Postmas on M-Net TV 14 Mar. (Carte Blanche)The so-called securities rand.
A long (rocky) hillock; an area of high, sloping ground;
A common element in place-names, e.g. Fish River Rand, Randburg, Randfontein, Witwatersrand.
The gold fields, mining towns, and cities (including Johannesburg) situated along the Witwatersrand gold-reef, in the province of Gauteng.
This gold-reef. Also attributive. In both senses also called the Reef (see reef sense 2).
Often with initial capital.The unit of decimal currency adopted in 1961, replacing the pound, and originally equivalent to ten shillings sterling; buck noun3; maphepha sense 1 a; R noun1. Also attributive.
Derivatives:
Hence (sense 2) Randite  noun  obsolete, one from the Rand; (sense 1 a) randsy  adjective  nonce, hilly.
1882 J. Nixon Among Boers 267We drove full tilt across a stony rantzy country, which neither delighted the eye, nor afforded ease to the back.
1923 B. Ronan Forty S. Afr. Yrs 175The whole thing would look very shoddy to the present-day Randite. It was the golden youth of the Golden City, when its precocious vitality was exuberant.
1926 E. Prov. Herald 16 Jan. 12Mutton for Randites.
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rampi, rampie, nounn.randjie, nounn.
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