stoep, noun

/stuːp//stʊp/
Forms:
stoop, stoupShow more Also stoop, stoup, stupe.
Origin:
South African Dutch, DutchShow more South African Dutch, from Dutch stoep step, porch, small paved elevation in front of a house.
1. Architecture
a. In Cape Dutch buildings: a raised (paved) platform or terrace running the whole length of the front of a house, often with a seat at each end (see rusbank sense 2). b. In general use: a verandah or porch, whether open, covered, or enclosed. Also attributive.
1797 Lady A. Barnard S. Afr. Century Ago (1910) 57As for the young Dutchmen, I saw hardly any; the young ones prefer smoking their pipes on the stoep.
1804 R. Percival Acct of Cape of G.H. 116Many of the houses have..in front a neat porch or stoop as the Dutch call it, raised a few steps from the ground and running the whole length of the house. They are enclosed with a parapet or wall three or four feet high, and have a seat or bench at each end.
1820 G. Barker Journal. 11 Feb.Filled the Stoop with ground...Began to put up the short pailing before the door & to render the stoop more agreeable.
1822 W.J. Burchell Trav. I. 71In front of each house..is a paved platform, usually eight or ten feet wide, and raised, commonly, from two to four feet above the level of the street...This platform is called the Stoep (step); and here the inhabitants frequently walk or sit, in the cool of the evening.
1822 W.J. Burchell Trav. I. 159Brought out chairs, and remained sitting on the ‘stupe’..the rest of the day.
a1827 D. Carmichael in W.J. Hooker Botanical Misc. (1831) II. 21These stoops are a great annoyance to the public, occupying an unreasonable proportion of the large streets, and reducing the smaller ones to mere lanes.
1833 S. Afr. Almanac & Dir. (advt)Ornamental Iron Railing, for Stoeps and fronts of Houses.
1837 J.E. Alexander Narr. of Voy. I. 326In the evening, the family parties of the respectable classes enjoyed themselves walking slowly about the raised stoep, or terrace, in front of their houses.
1852 A.W. Cole Cape & Kafirs 25The houses are all stuccoed; many of them have trees in front of them, and all of them a terrace or stoep, as the Dutch call it, with a seat at each end.
1879 E.L. Price Jrnls (1956) 303It is not a verandah on which we sit, it is a stoep. Do you remember the old Kuruman stoep without [a] roof — with the seat at the end and the steps down & the syringa trees in front?
1882 S. Heckford Lady Trader in Tvl 70A raised ‘stoop’..was covered by an iron verandah, and ended in two small rooms, one used as a visitor’s room, the other as a lumber room.
1899 R. Devereux Side Lights on S. Afr. 34The stoep bears about the same relation to the Africander as his café does to the Frenchman. There he transacts his business, and distracts his leisure: there he smokes, drinks, loves, and sometimes dies. Not even the jerriest builder would dream of dispensing with it.
1910 D. Fairbridge That Which Hath Been (1913) 106A wide stoep, paved with large red tiles, ran entirely round the building, under the green-shuttered windows, with a curved white-plastered seat at each corner.
1918 H. Moore Land of Good Hope 23The farmer is content with a plain square building of rough-baked bricks, or mud, with a verandah or ‘stoep’, upon which he sits in the evening for his pipe and coffee.
1926 P.W. Laidler Tavern of Ocean 59A very ornamental centre gable, and a stoep seat at right angles to the wall.
a1936 S. & E. Afr. Yr Bk & Guide 37Stoep, platform in front of house.
1947 O. Walker in Vandag Apr. 25The saurian torpor of a Bushveld farm stoep.
1956 D. Jacobson Dance in Sun 14It was called the ‘Mirredal Hotel’, on a painted sheet-metal poster above the roof of the stoep.
1960 M. Muller Art Past & Present 109The uncovered or ‘trellised’ stoep, with its built-in seats at either end, formed a charming feature of the Cape Dutch house.
1963 A. Fugard Notebks (1983) 104Little semi-detached houses, some derelict..; young girls leaning on stoeps chewing bubble-gum.
1964 M.G. McCoy Informant, Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), Eastern CapeFour bedrooms & a gorgeous enclosed east-facing wide stoep, plus a front stoep.
1971 E. Prov. Herald 30 Apr. 7Four only Steel-Frame Chairs, suitable for Stoep or Garden use.
1971 Het Suid-Western 14 May 9Wrought iron porch or stoep lanterns.
1973 E. Prov. Herald 4 July 27Two shell back wooden Stoep Chairs.
1982 Fair Lady 27 Jan. 141He spent his days lying on an old leather couch on the front stoep, watching the passers-by.
1990 Afr. Wildlife Sept.–Oct. 257The Tokai Manor House is a fine example of his work, with its round stoep pillars and its rectangular gable.
2. combinations
stoep-farmer, a farmer who is considered to be a stoepsitter; cf. cheque-book farmer (see cheque-book);
stoepkamer/-kɑːmə(r)/ [Afrikaans, kamer room], a room built into one end of a covered verandah; also attributive;
stoep plant, a pot-plant decorating a verandah;
stoep room, stoepkamer (see above);
stoepsitter/-sətə(r)//sɪtə/ [Afrikaans, sitter sitter], one who habitually sits on a stoep; an idler, one who gives others instructions and avoids work; hence stoep-sitting participial adjective.
1948 O. Walker Kaffirs Are Lively 102The laziest men I’ve seen in this country are the stoep-farmers and the boss-boys.
1963 R. Lewcock Early 19th C. Archit. 171It (sc. the house) is today preserved in a form substantially like that of the plan.., the main difference being that the stoepkamer walls are not splayed outwards as shown on the plan.
1985 Informant, George, Eastern CapeChanging the stoepkamer into a kitchen has revolutionized my life.
1916 L.D. Flemming Fool on Veld (1933) 115The heat had..shrivelled up my stoep plants to a gasping mass.
1961 D. Bee Children of Yesterday 231The solid, wide-veranda’d house with its mass of stoep plants.
1968 S. Cloete Chetoko 111She attended to her stoep plants.
1974 E. Prov. Herald 8 May 21A pineapple can make an attractive stoep plant and even yield fruit when grown in a pot.
1880 H.M. Prichard Friends & Foes 122Two very miniature stoeprooms as they are called at the Cape. (Small rooms stolen out of each end of the verandah.)
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 480Stoep rooms,..Rooms built as wings to a house, but with entrance and exit opening on to the ‘stoep’ only; sometimes they were merely the ‘stoep’ ends walled off.
1978 A.P. Brink Rumours of Rain 334We boys would be instructed to stay in the stoep rooms until four, the curtains drawn to shut out the world outside.
1934 C.P. Swart Supplement to Pettman. 168Stoepsitter,..A sluggard or lazy person; sometimes humorously applied by townsmen to farmers, who used to spend much of their time on the stoep, drinking their favourite beverage, coffee.
1948 O. Walker Kaffirs Are Lively 92They don’t work. They’re stoep-sitters, coffee-tipplers and pipe-spitters.
1955 L.G. Green Karoo 14In the villages knowing stoepsitters left their benches to gather round the car and jeer at our ‘Cape to Bulawayo’ banner.
1972 Evening Post 9 Sept. 3One of the devices in the play is a chorus of three old men, ‘stoepsitters’, who represent the traditional small-town community and comment on the main action.
1900 C.R. Prance Antic Mem. 130There he remains in memory well over forty years, an abiding object-lesson in the folly of newspaper-prattle about the ‘stoep-sitting farmer’ and his distaste for ‘Kaffir work’.
a raised (paved) platform or terrace running the whole length of the front of a house, often with a seat at each end (see rusbank sense 2).
a verandah or porch, whether open, covered, or enclosed.
Derivatives:
Hence (nonce) bestoeped  adjective, possessing a stoep; stoeping  noun, sitting on a stoep.
1901 E. Wallace Unofficial Despatches 16Cool old Dutch homesteads, bestoeped and beflowered, peep out from a dozen gardens.
1948 H.V. Morton In Search of S. Afr. 286Stoeping can become almost a profession, certainly a calling. The spell of the stoep is tremendous. Once you have your own seat there, it is difficult to be anywhere else.
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