‖stinkhout, noun

/ˈstəŋkhəʊt/
Forms:
Formerly also stink-houtt.
Origin:
South African Dutch, DutchShow more South African Dutch, from Dutch stink stink(ing) + hout wood.
a. stinkwood sense a. Also attributive.
1790 tr. of F. Le Vaillant’s Trav. II. 239I observed here many trees of the same kind as those I had met with in the country of Auteniqua: the stink-houtt, or stinking wood, abounded in every quarter.
1795 C.R. Hopson tr. of C.P. Thunberg’s Trav. I. 169Stink-hout (Stink-wood)..is used for making writing-desks and chests of drawers.
1795 C.R. Hopson tr. of C.P. Thunberg’s Trav. II. 110Of the Stinkhout there are two sorts, the white and the brown.
1798 S.H. Wilcocke tr. of J.S. Stavorinus’s Voy. to E. Indies II. 79Stinkhout, or stinkwood, which is a beautiful brown wood, like walnuttree-wood; household furniture of all kinds is made of it; it is susceptible of the finest polish.
1809 J. Mackrill Diary. 58Stink hout, like the Walnut tree.
[1812 A. Plumptre tr. of H. Lichtenstein’s Trav. in Sn Afr. (1928) I. 188Large oaks, sumachs, and a tree that is called here Stinkholz called by Thunberg ilex crocea, but it seems not yet systematically classed.]
1834 T. Pringle Afr. Sketches 219I observed..iron-wood, stinkhout (laurus bullata),..and many other woods prized for their useful qualities.
1847 J. Barrow Autobiog. Memoir 162Stink-hout takes its name from an offensive odour which it exhales while green.
1887 S.W. Silver & Co.’s Handbk to S. Afr. 128‘How many stinkhout trees of three feet diameter have you?’ Not a man in the colony can tell whether there are a thousand or a hundred thousand.
1986 Sunday Times 7 Sept. 7The sexual antics of the Matie lovers in the sanctimonious privacy of the ‘stinkhout ossewa’.
b. With distinguishing epithet:
Camdeboo stinkhout (obs.), or wit stinkhout [Afrikaans, wit white], Camdeboo stinkwood (see stinkwood sense b); also attributive.
1852 M.B. Hudson S. Afr. Frontier Life 34Ensconsed in a corner at foot of the rock Is the Camdeboo Stinkhout.
1971 Baraitser & Obholzer Cape Country Furn. 220Early ‘wit stinkhout’ wakis with tapered sides, a voorkis.
1984 [see Camdeboo stinkwood stinkwood sense b].
stinkwood sense a. Also attributive.
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obsolete or obsolescent
stinker, nounn.stinking wood, noun phrasen. phr.
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