(in shoemaking) a strip of leather set in a shoe at the heel before the lifts are attached.
British Dialect.
a strip or long slice.
a border or margin.
shoemaking a leather strip put in the heel of a shoe before the lifts are put on
dialect
a strip or margin; border
a strip of cloth; selvage
before 900; Middle English, Old English; cognate with Dutch, German rand border, margin
1960–65; from Afrikaans, after The Rand ( def. ) (Witwatersrand), a major gold mining area
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In morning trading, shares were up 4.1% at 152.18 South African rand, taking their year-to-date gain to 7.7%.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 11, 2026
This took its full-year dividend to 7.35 rand a share, beating analysts’ expectations of 7.09 rand a share, according to consensus estimates provided by FactSet.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 11, 2026
The bank has currently booked 6.588 billion rand pretax in provisions, suggesting the need for a top-up, the analysts write.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026
Shell, along with BP, sold the refinery they jointly owned to South Africa’s state-owned Central Energy Fund in 2024 for one South African rand, or about six U.S. cents.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 6, 2026
So now this guy’s walking away with a DVD player and 10 rand in his pocket.
From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah
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.
