Kafir
Americannoun
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Also called Nuristani. a member of an Indo-European people of Nuristan.
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Islam. none kafir a person who has no religious faith; unbeliever.
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Also called kafir corn. none kafir Also kaffir. a grain sorghum, Sorghum bicolor caffrorum, having stout, short-jointed, leafy stalks, introduced into the United States from southern Africa.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of Kafir
First recorded in 1830–40 as Kaffirs; see origin at Kaffir
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Kafir" is one spelling of an Arabic word commonly used for "unbeliever".
From BBC ● Nov. 10, 2023
She writes of attending the wedding of a young girl, a native of the Kafir tribe: “Kafir girls dread being married, for it is simply taking a hard place without wages.”
From Washington Post ● Jun. 25, 2020
“We fill a niche,” said Nemi Ashkar during a tour of his winery in Kafir Yassif.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 4, 2019
The Ashkar family’s love of winemaking did not diminish with their move to Kafir Yassif, 30 km away.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 4, 2019
“Well, Greenoak, so you couldn’t induce old Kreli to show up?” said the Commandant, naming the great and paramount chief of all the Transkeian, and also of the Kafir tribes within the Colonial border.
From Harley Greenoak's Charge by Mitford, Bertram
The ranching-farms are very large,—usually six thousand acres,—so there are few settlers; and the Kafirs are also few, for this high region is cold in winter, and the dry soil does not favour cultivation.
From Impressions of South Africa by Bryce, James Bryce, Viscount
They lived hundreds of miles from the nearest British outpost, and their wars with the Kafirs scarcely affected those tribes with whom the British authorities came in contact.
From Impressions of South Africa by Bryce, James Bryce, Viscount
Indeed it would not be surprising if it turned out that the expedition across the Bashi was a cunningly devised trap, not originating with the Kafirs either.
From 'Tween Snow and Fire A Tale of the Last Kafir War by Mitford, Bertram
A large force of Afghan troops was at that time in the Chitral river valley to the south of Chitral, nominally holding the Kafirs in check during the progress of boundary demarcation.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" by Various
But of this there is no evidence; and some have even fancied that the Hottentot race itself may have been a mixed one, produced by intermarriage between Bushmen and Kafirs.
From Impressions of South Africa by Bryce, James Bryce, Viscount
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
