soetdoring, noun

Forms:
Formerly also zoetdoorn.
Origin:
Afrikaans, DutchShow more Afrikaans (earlier Dutch zoetdoorn), soet sweet + doring thorn.
1. The sweet thorn, Acacia karroo. Also attributive.
a1912 S. Afr. Agric. Jrnl June 790 (Pettman)The only compensation seems to be afforded by the zoetdoorn (one of the Acacias). These trees started flowering early in the season.
a1951 H.C. Bosman Willemsdorp (1977) 87All around there was just African bush, soet-dorings and moepels.
1972 S. Afr. Panorama May 29Australian blue grass, silver wattle and indigenous soetdoring trees.
1976 V. Rosenberg Sunflower 35It was a vast dust bowl studded with the whole panoply of thorn-trees, from the haak-en-steek to the apiesdoring, the kameeldoring and the widespread soetdoring.
1990 M. Smit in Sunday Times 2 Dec. 27The wise among us sat at breakfast in the shade of mopani and soetdoring.
1992 Weekend Post 6 June (Leisure) 7Acacia karroo, sweet thorn, soetdoring. The principal tree of the Karoo regions, it appears in different sizes ranging from shrub to large spreading tree.
2. combination
soetdoring-veld obsolete [Afrikaans veld uncultivated country], grassland upon which soetdoring shrubs or trees have appeared.
1914 Agric. Jrnl of Union in E.N. Marais Rd to Waterberg 23It was attempted to start growth by damping and shading two hundred clumps of sweet grass of different varieties growing on zoetdoorn-veld.
The sweet thorn, Acacia karroo. Also attributive.
, grassland upon which soetdoring shrubs or trees have appeared.
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19121992

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