1. obsolete. The team of oxen pulling a wagon.
1833 [see quot. at trek ox (sense 12 a below)].
1838 J.E. Alexander Exped. into Int. II. 215
Stick to the trek (or line of pack oxen) and the trek will stick to you.
12. Special Combinations.
a. Combinations related to ox wagons and to the oxen which pull them (see
sense 1):
trek cattle, draught cattle
;
trek gear or
trekgoed /-xut/ [Afrikaans
goed goods, things
], the equipment (such as yokes and chains) used in harnessing draught animals for wagon travel
;
trekos /-ɔs/ [Afrikaans,
os ox
], or
trek ox,
(a) a draught ox;
(b) figurative, tough meat; also
attributive;
trek wagon, an ox wagon; a large, sturdily-built covered wagon used for long journeys
.
a1867 C.J. Andersson Notes of Trav. (1875
) I was enabled..to collect the scattered trek-cattle, &c., which were now inspanned.
1900 Daily News 6 Apr. 3
The local supply of trek cattle..from the farms of the Boers.
1928 E.H.L. Schwarz Kalahari & its Native Races 55
The sand was trampled by the feet of thousands of trek cattle that had come here to drink.
1859 R.J. Mann Col. of Natal 207
The trek-chain, or hide-rope, (trek-tow) runs along between each pair of the oxen.
1878 H.A. Roche On Trek in Tvl 332
Our oxen were free, walking off a yard or two with our..trek chain.
1918 C. Garstin Sunshine Settlers 48
The sixteen long-horned oxen..strained on the trek-chain.
1937 S. Cloete Turning Wheels 33
At night the working oxen were tied to their gear and the trek-chains anchored to each other.
1952 H. Klein Land of Silver Mist 29
The team strained at the trek-chain and soon had car and caravan on the hilltop.
1977 F.G. Butler Karoo Morning 11
She expressed a keen longing to experience a trek by oxwagon..the huge patient beasts, the straining of trek chain, the rifle-cracking whips, the intimate campfire.
1884 ‘E.V.C.’ Promised Land 39
Back we all climbed to the wagon, and carefully examined the trek gear before inspanning.
1914 L.H. Brinkman Breath of Karroo 48
Gijs was to come over with his trek-gear and oxen and fetch du Plessis’s buck-waggon.
1931 O. Letcher Afr. Unveiled 103
The oxen began to pick up their weary heads and to strain more heavily on the trek gear.
1942 S. Cloete Hill of DovesGlossary, Trek gear: ox yokes, harness, chains, etc.
1912 Queenstown Rep. 27 Jan. 5
(Pettman)These accidents especially as far as trek-goed is concerned always happen when they are least expected.
1922 J.G. Fraser in F.G. Butler When Boys Were Men (1969
) 207
The disselboom or pole, to which the trekgoed or drawing gear was attached.
1941 A.G. Bee Kalahari Camp Fires (1943
) 269
Try to disentangle them.., and you will save the ‘trek-goed’ (hauling gear) as well as the oxen.
1968 J.T. McNish Rd to El Dorado 112
The unskilled diggers assisted the driver..to disentangle the yoked animals and remove the ‘trekgoed’ to the river bank where it was properly aligned again.
1972 L.G. Green When Journey’s Over 134
I place meat as the greatest of all foodstuffs. Not all meat of course. Not the trekos or the hoender that has to be roasted in a pot until it falls apart and comes out devoid of flavour.
1833 Graham’s Town Jrnl 7 Mar. 1
On the same day will also be offered, Thirty fine Track Oxen.
1850 R.G.G. Cumming Hunter’s Life I. 220
I purchased..several..trek-oxen.
1867 S. Turner in D. Child Portrait of Pioneer (1980
) 63
The next night they pulled down a trek-ox close to the wagon.
1879 R.J. Atcherley Trip to Boërland 48
When in fair condition and inoculated for lung-sickness, the trek-ox will cost about £8, and a good waggon may be purchased for £100.
1882 C.L. Norris-Newman With Boers in Tvl 190
Forty oxen being killed daily in the camp, there was a profusion of good beef, all good and fat, and not like the trek ox ‘Tommy Atkins’ had to put up with.
1896 H.A. Bryden Tales of S. Afr. 230
Lying at their yokes, chewing peacefully the cud, the great trek oxen rested.
1905 P. Gibbon Vrouw Grobelaar 15
A great hulking fellow, with the strength of a trek-ox.
1906 H. Rider Haggard Benita 249
Benita could swallow no food; she was weary of that sun-dried trek-ox.
1929 J.G. Van Alphen Jan Venter 71
He looked as tired as a wheeler trek-ox at an outspan.
1938 F.C. Slater Trek 3
I leave..and make my pilgrimage, At trek-ox pace.
1948 V.M. Fitzroy Cabbages & Cream 124
One day Shilling gave Christopher a trek-ox horn. It was a huge thing, like a drinking horn out of a Norse saga.
1961 L.E. Van Onselen Trekboer 82
One old Trekboer said to me that when the trek oxen drink, they raise their eyes to Heaven in thanksgiving to their Maker.
1967 E.M. Slatter My Leaves Are Green 6
Venison would make a change from the eternal ‘trek-ox’ which was ‘Maritzburg’s staple meat supply.’
1970 ‘R.C.G.’ in Outpost 140
The first war was won on bread and jam and tea, and who shall say how much crime was stamped out on tea and trek ox?
1971 H. Zeederberg Veld Express 234
Another 2,509 Australians were loaded on to the heavy transport wagons drawn by Africander trek oxen.
1976 A.R. Willcox Sn Land 177
One by one, stricken by nagana, the trek-oxen dropped.
1979 T. Pakenham Boer War (1982
) 263
Now, with the Sunday lunch of ‘T.O.’ (trek-ox) and hard biscuits, the hard truth.
1985 S. Afr. Panorama Oct. 43
Villages were cut off from the world whenever drought prevented trek oxen from getting through.
1898 J.F. Ingram Story of Afr. City 179
The finishing and painting department is encountered, where..stand the great trek-wagons, waiting but the order to start like ‘ships of the desert’ to the far-off lands of the Matabele and Mashona.
1936 E. Rosenthal Old-Time Survivals 6
Perhaps the proudest possession of the National Museum at Pretoria is the original trek-wagon of President Paul Kruger.
1948 H.V. Morton In Search of S. Afr. 83
The African trek wagon was really a caravan in which people lived as they travelled.
1969 D. Child Yesterday’s Children 101
The trek-wagon was a sturdy vehicle whose body was long in proportion to its breadth. It had four heavy wheels shod with iron, and a canvas canopy stretched over semi-circular hoops.
1988 J. Boekkooi in Weekend Argus 3 Sept. 5
They don’t build trek-wagons like they used to.
b. Combinations related to travel or to the nomadic or migratory movements of people or animals:
trek boer /- bʊə/, /- bur/, plural
trek boers, and (formerly)
trek boeren,
[Afrikaans,
boer farmer
] historical,
(a) a nomadic farmer,
(b) Voortrekker noun sense 1; also
attributive;
trekbok /-bɔk/ [Afrikaans
bok antelope
] or partial translation of
trekbuck, a springbok which is part of a large migrating herd; (usually in
plural form
trekbokken) a collective term for the herd or the migration; see also
springbok sense 1 a; cf.
houbok;
trek farmer,
trek boer sense
(a) (see above)
;
trek fever or
trekgees /-xɪəs/, earlier
trekgeest [Afrikaans,
gees (Dutch
geest) spirit
], restlessness, wanderlust, a longing for open spaces and the outdoor life
;
trekpad /-pat/ [Afrikaans,
pad path, roadway
], an established route used by people trekking by wagon
;
trek pass [English
pass note of authorization
], in rural areas, a written document given to an employee on dismissal or departure, entitling him or her to seek other employment
;
trek-path,
(a) a rural servitude; the right to herd animals across privately-owned land en route from one grazing area to another; also
attributive;
(b) an established animal track
;
1835 A. Steedman Wanderings II. 53
We met a Trek Boor, with his cattle.
1837 J.M. Bowker Speeches & Sel. (1864
) 56
We met with..springboks and trek-boeren.
1857 F.W. Reitz in Cape Monthly Mag. II. Oct. 198
There is a wide difference between our ‘trek-boer’ and the Canadian or United States backwoodsman.
1871 J. Mackenzie Ten Yrs N. of Orange River 14
‘Trek-boers,’ wandering farmers,..live in their waggon and tent, and shift about from place to place with their flocks and herds. Many of these people never possess houses, but pass their whole life in this nomadic manner.
1882 C. Du Val With Show through Sn Afr. I. 106
Abolition of slavery was the primary cause of the movement of these ‘trekk Boers’, and dissatisfaction generally with the subsequent native policy of the British Government aided it.
1898 W.C. Scully Between Sun & Sand 2
Bushmanland is..intermittently inhabited by a nomadic population of Europeans of Dutch descent, who are known as ‘Trek-Boers’.
1902 D. Van Warmelo On Commando 74
It was a journey difficult even for a trek Boer, and more than difficult for a large commando.
1941 C.W. De Kiewiet Hist. of S. Afr. 17
The trekboers..left the current of European life...Though they never became true nomads, the mark of nomadism was upon them.
1958 A. Jackson Trader on Veld 31
It was the happy hunting ground of the Trek Boer, moving from place to place with all his livestock, wherever the grazing was good.
1961 [see quot. at trek-path below].
1971 Baraitser & Obholzer Cape Country Furn. 97
In 1835 Bell sketched the inside of a trek boer tent.
1987 Investing Today (pamphlet)This colourless tangy fruit spirit made in the traditional copper still of the old trekboer days.
1990 Sunday Times 8 July 18
The Trekboers, that much-romanticised group which ‘tamed’ the South African interior, were, like their American cowboy counterparts, a pretty untamed lot themselves.
1824 S. Afr. Jrnl I. 72
On the approach of the Trek-Bokken or migrating spring-boks, the grazier makes up his mind to look for pasturage for his flocks elsewhere.
1827 G. Thompson Trav. 40
The destructive trek-bokken or migratory springboks, pressed by the long droughts, occasionally inundate the northern parts of the Colony.
1839 W.C. Harris Wild Sports 33
The trek bokken, as the occasional immigration..of countless swarms of these antelopes is called by the colonists.
1860 A.W. Drayson Sporting Scenes 159
They said that in the great ‘trek-boken’, or journey of the springbok, the numbers were inconceivable; that they destroyed all the grass, leaving the plain like a vast cattle-fold.
1875 J.J. Bisset Sport & War 197
The trek-boks were as much dreaded by the farmers as the locusts...During the time of drought in the interior..these trek-boks migrate southward, devouring every blade of grass before them.
1889 H.A. Bryden Kloof & Karroo 233
During this last great trek bokken, he killed with buck-shot no less than five bok at one shot.
1922 J.G. Fraser in F.G. Butler When Boys Were Men (1969
) 212
It took about three days before the whole of the trekbokken had passed, and it left our country looking as if a fire had passed over it.
1941 N. Devitt Celebrated S. Afr. Crimes 18
Wants and worries were few, unless perhaps the fear of drought,..or that the trek-bokken should come, those herds of nomadic spring-bokken which move in their thousands across the countryside, trampling all before them.
1955 L.G. Green Karoo 44
Karoo farmers last century firmly believed in two varieties of springbok — the lean trekbok and the fatter houbok (about fifteen pounds heavier), which remained in one area.
1972 A. Scholefield Wild Dog Running 105
Herds of springbuck, the ‘trekbokken’ as they were called, stretching from one horizon to the next.
1981 H. Thesen in Outeniqualander 25 June 9This is a microcosm of the ancient sound of the ‘trek bok’ on the move, millions strong, trampling all before them in a sometimes suicidal search for new grazing for their burgeoning numbers.
1985 S. Afr. Panorama Oct. 43
‘The trekbuck are coming; it will be death to stay in this river bed.’...Soon a drumming sound..and a cloud of dust warned that thousands of leaping springbok were being funnelled in his direction.
1912 E. London Dispatch 1 May 5
(Pettman)The desirability of amending the railway tariff for trek-sheep to enable trek farmers to avail themselves of the railway when moving stock to winter pasture.
1966 E. Palmer Plains of Camdeboo 128
The mountain bush had housed the first trek-farmers in hard and stormy weather.
1987 I. Claassen in S. Afr. Panorama Aug. 22
It is sparsely populated by Coloureds and Namas, of whom many are trek-farmers with large herds of goats.
1897 J.P. Fitzpatrick Outspan 3
When..this instinct, feeling, craving..awakens, as it perdiodically does, it becomes a madness, and they call it trek-fever, and then..‘You must trek or burst!’
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 513
Trek fever, The insatiable longing which possesses the man who has once yielded himself to the spirit of wandering and adventure in the vast areas of the sub-continent is thus designated.
1943 D. Reitz No Outspan 106
Here..in 1878 they had built a church, their trek-fever temporarily stilled.
1953 D. Rooke S. Afr. Twins 55
Trek fever started..when a man turned his eyes toward the horizon and began to speculate what lay beyond. The next thing was to go and find out.
1904 H.A. Bryden Hist. of S. Afr. 65
The ‘trek-geest’ — the spirit of wandering — stirred within them. The more discontented and masterful..determined to sell their farms, quit the Cape Colony,..and seek new homes and wide farms in the dim and unknown regions beyond the Orange River.
1936 Cambridge Hist. of Brit. Empire VIII. 530
Kruger’s policy of expansion was entirely consonant with his countrymen’s ever-present trekgeest, the desire to trek with guns and waggons to new lands in the ‘vast spaces washed with sun’ which beckoned them onwards into the Great Continent.
1941 C.W. De Kiewiet Hist. of S. Afr. 47
The old trekgeest, the spirit of the open veld, of greener grass beyond the horizon.
1968 G. Croudace Silver Grass 26
Driven by trekgees — the restless fever that afflicted the Afrikaner trekkers at the sight of their neighbour’s smoke — he had crossed the Kalahari Desert from the Transvaal.
1973 J. Meintjes Voortrekkers 43
Louis even as a boy developed the trekgees and he was to wander far and wide.
1989 Reader’s Digest Illust. Hist. of S. Afr. 57
To tempt families to settle permanently, he proposed that..a burgher might convert 50 hectares of his leningplaats to freehold property...On those who had succumbed to the trekgees (wanderlust) this new offer had no effect.
1937 S. Cloete Turning Wheels 11
The bends in the old trek pad, that so many followed later, were due to Herman van der Berg. Due to his signalling the voorlopers to the right or left, away from a tree stump or an ant-bear hole.
1952 H. Klein Land of Silver Mist 108
A cry that now..takes me back..to that first moment when I knew that I had found that ‘somewhere’ waiting for me on my trek pad.
1963 S. Cloete Rags of Glory 33
The great trekpad was dotted with the graves of men and the bones of the stock that had died by the thousand on the way.
1931 H.C. Bosman in V. Rosenberg Almost Forgotten Stories (1979
) 33
Francina wrote out all the trekpasses and made all the kaffirs clear off the farm.
1939 R.F.A. Hoernlé S. Afr. Native Policy 83
Those who were unwilling to renew their contracts on the new terms, were offered only a ‘trek-pass,’ entitling them to seek a position on another farm in the district.
1986 J. Baloyi Learn & Teach No.2
, 36
Country people live better than town people because they can stay with their families in the same house. Nobody can ask them about ‘trek-passes’.
1889 Divisional Council Act in Stat. of Cape of G.H. 1652–1905 (1906
) 2745
The words path or track shall not be taken to mean trekpaths lawfully used in certain districts of the Colony.
1929 J.G. Van Alphen Jan Venter 47
He says he is no longer going to have his land cut up by roads and trek-paths.
1936 Cape Argus 18 Mar. 13
The trek-path controversy has led many men to fence their farms.
1945 G. Wille Principles of S. Afr. Law 204
Trek-path, trek pad; the right of driving cattle, including large flocks of sheep, across the land of another.
1961 L.E. Van Onselen Trekboer 45
The man who lives along the trekpath should realize his good fortune in owning a fixed property and a solidly built house. He should not look down upon the less fortunate Trekboer.
1968 S. Stander HorseA thousand animals..moved down the ancient trek-path.
1977 S. Stander Flight from Hunter 38
They are trek-paths. The animals often go right across the pan, making their own paths.
1939 M. Rorke Melina Rorke 100
Thinking it too dangerous to risk a solitary crossing with trek-weary oxen, he had decided to turn back.
c. Combinations related to fishing (see
sense 10):
trek boat, a boat used in
trek fishing (see below)
;
trek fisherman, one who fishes using a
trek net (see below);
trekker sense 2;
trek net, a seine net: a large fishing net, weighted at one end and fitted with floats on the other so that it hangs vertically in the water, usually dropped from a boat and hauled in from the shore; also
attributive; hence
trek netter,
trek fisherman (see above)
.
1985 S.-Easter Oct.
–Nov. 23
(advt)Dine in an antique Trek Boat.
1992 Yeld & Gubb in Afr. Wildlife Vol.46 No.2
, 200
Trek-boats have operated in the bay for well over a century.
1968 Drum Sept. 38
Osman ‘Oesie’ Mohammed, a 40-year-old trek-fisherman, is indeed a big man.
1973 Farmer’s Weekly 18 Apr. 102
It (sc. the harder) is generally caught from the beaches in the nets of the trek fishermen.
1989 Our Living World Aug. 6
Nan..watched trek fishermen catching dolphins in nets in Hout Bay.
1992 Yeld & Gubb in Afr. Wildlife Vol.46 No.2
, 200
There have been consistent catches of a number of different species by trek-fishermen over the years.
1970 Cape Argus 24 Dec. 2
Another crew member..had gone along..to assist them with the trek fishing.
1983 Cape Times 5 Jan. 11
Cancellation of some trek-fishing licences has begun in terms of the government’s tough new conservation policies.
1991 B.J. Barker Fairest Cape 47
(caption)On the long, white beach at Fish Hoek, trek-fishing boats are drawn up on the sands.
1913 W.W. Thompson Sea Fisheries of Cape Col. 46
The seine, or ‘trek-net’, has from the very earliest period of the European occupation of the country been the type of net generally adopted.
1934 C.P. Swart Supplement to Pettman. 179Trek-net, A seine is so called by S.A. fishermen, whose method is to set the nets near the shore and wait for the fish to come in, when the net and its catch are drawn on to the beach.
1964 L.G. Green Old Men Say 90
Poet’s Corner in Woodstock was originally Fisherman’s Corner because so many of the treknet brethren lived there.
1970 Argus 24 Dec. 2
They had cast trek nets in the surf about 50 yards from the beach.
1987 Sunday Times 15 Feb.
(Mag. Sect.
) 61
A dolphin-catching outfit had dragged ashore 200 dolphins in a trek net to select a couple for sale to South Africa’s dolphinaria.
1947trek-netter: [see
joseph].
1956 J.L.B. Smith Old Fourlegs 9
I lived with the coastal trek-netters.
1973 Argus 12 Jan. 20
(caption)This Bluefin Tunny of over 200kg was dragged ashore by trek netters at Fish Hoek.., indicative of how close inshore these giant fish come.
1983 Cape Times 31 Dec. 9
The trek-netters at Glencairn took a shoal of about 300 big fish.
1993 Sn Argus 12 Aug. 4I would like to reply to Mr Petty’s letter, which accuses me of being..unfairly biased against the trek netters.
d. Special Combinations related to the underlying sense of ‘trek’ in Du. and Afk. (a tug, a pulling action):
treksaw, a two-handled cross-cut saw, operated by two people alternately pushing and pulling
.
1973 E. Prov. Herald 28 May 13
A large hole in the ground under the log and a double-handled treksaw pushed and pulled by two men, one down in the hole and the other above.
The team of oxen pulling a wagon.
In the phrase on the trek, on trek,in the process of travelling or migrating by wagon; on the road.
A leg of a journey; in historical contexts, the distance travelled by ox-wagon between halts (or ‘outspans’).
The relocation of a large group of people from one area to another, the move usually being made by ox-wagon, and being prompted by political discontent or economic hardship.
Latterly, any relocation, including a temporary move, as for the purpose of working for some months in a distant town. Also attributive.
a long trip by ox-wagon.
Any journey, especially a long or arduous one, or one involving travel in the wilds; journeying.
A group of travellers; an expedition party; a wagon train, including the travellers, their goods and livestock, and their wagons and draught animals (usually oxen).
Goods and chattels; possessions.
Hard work, a ‘long haul’; mental or spiritual endeavour.
A migration of animals. Also attributive.
(a haul of fish caught by) the act of hauling in from the shore a trek net which has been cast in the sea.
Chrome
Firefox
Internet Explorer
Safari