Kafir
Americannoun
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Kafirs,
plural
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Kafir
plural
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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
“Who was the man who asked leave to sleep in the huts, to-night?” asked the old Kafir, meaningly.
From The Fire Trumpet A Romance of the Cape Frontier by Bertram Mitford
Nothing, however, could be done beyond what the captain and the Kafirs were doing, so that suspense was weighted by no sense of personal responsibility.
From Impressions of South Africa by James Bryce, Viscount Bryce
This was Usivulele, the man whom he had held as a hostage, after the fight with the Hottentot Levy, when he had allowed the Kafirs to look after their wounded.
From The Fire Trumpet A Romance of the Cape Frontier by Bertram Mitford
While the troops were absent, a body of Kafirs assembled in the bush of the Great Fish River, from which they issued to attack Grahamstown.
From Six Months at the Cape by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
Less than an hour's easy work brought us to the highest point of a ridge which fell northward in a precipice, and our Kafirs declared that this was the summit of Machacha.
From Impressions of South Africa by James Bryce, Viscount Bryce
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 James Bryce, Viscount Bryce
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.
