skomfaan, noun

/sɡɔmˈfɑːn/
Forms:
Also sgomfaan, skomfana.
Origin:
IsiZuluShow more Adaptation of isiZulu isigomfane, formed on gomfa bend, crouch, stoop.
In township slang: a potent illicitly-brewed alcoholic drink (see quotation 1987). Also combination (objective) skomfaan-drinker. Cf. skokiaan.
1969 Post 16 Feb.Mrs Selina M— travels all the way from Zone 3 in Meadowlands for her regular fruit can of ‘sgomfaan’.
1973 P. Clarke in Contrast 32 Vol.8 No.4, 27One of the skomfaan-drinkers..asked her to give him a rag to wipe off a spoon he had used..in the jam-tin skaal out of which he had been drinking skomfaan.
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 203Shebeen owners..could vary their products to suit individual tastes, offering traditional maize and sorghum beer, noxious chemical mixtures such as babaton, ’skomfana, ’shimiyane, skokiaan, and isikilimikwiki (‘kill me quick’), and commercial European liquors.
1982 Pace May 34All the illegal concoctions being brewed by domestic servants in their quarters — skomfaan, mbamba, skokiaan, barberton, what have you.
1982 Pace May 103It was the time of prohibition and the liquor laws, and good wives would help make ends meet by brewing ‘Skomfana’.
1987 M. Melamu Children of Twilight 163Mma-Lekwete’s special brew called skomfaan, a curious mixture of such incredible ingredients as methylated spirits, used dynamite, malt and various other odds and ends reputed to give the much desired ‘kick’ to the concoction.
a potent illicitly-brewed alcoholic drink (see quotation 1987). Also combination (objective) skomfaan-drinker.
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IsiZulu
skolly, nounn.skop, nounn.1
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