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
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
“We fill a niche,” said Nemi Ashkar during a tour of his winery in Kafir Yassif.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 4, 2019
“Do you want to find Umlilwane?” went on the old Kafir with ever so slight an expression on the “want.”
From 'Tween Snow and Fire A Tale of the Last Kafir War by Bertram Mitford
They were so-called Red Kafirs, because of their habit of painting their bodies and blankets with red ochre.
From Six Months at the Cape by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
So he restrains his anxiety to peep forth, and, as he lies perdu, even chuckles over the supernatural theories set forth by the Kafirs to account for his disappearance.
From The Fire Trumpet A Romance of the Cape Frontier by Bertram Mitford
But although he employed all his resources in endeavouring to subject the Kafirs of Bolor, or Kafiristan as it is now called, he was unable to make any permanent additions in this direction.
From The Life of Yakoob Beg Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar by Demetrius Charles Boulger
On the north-east the deserts of the Karroo lay between the colonists and the Kafirs who inhabited the plains of the Upper Orange and Vaal rivers.
From Impressions of South Africa by James Bryce, Viscount Bryce
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 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.
