SOUTH AFRICA

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A republic at the southernmost part of Africa; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1910; first European settlers were Dutch (known as Boers)

Synonyms:

Republic of South Africa; South Africa

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Instance hypernyms:

African country; African nation (any one of the countries occupying the African continent)

Meronyms (parts of "South Africa"):

Orange; Orange River (a river in South Africa that flows generally westward to the Atlantic Ocean)

Crocodile River; Limpopo (an African river; flows into the Indian Ocean)

Kalahari; Kalahari Desert (a desert in southwestern Africa - largely Botswana)

Soweto (a large collection of African townships to the southwest of Johannesburg in South Africa; inhabited solely by Black Africans)

Bloemfontein (the seat of the supreme court)

Cape Colony; Cape of Good Hope Province; Cape Province (a former province of southern South Africa that was settled by the Dutch in 1652 and ceded to Great Britain in 1814; in 1994 it was split into three new provinces of South Africa)

Transvaal (a province of northeastern South Africa originally inhabited by Africans who spoke Bantu; colonized by the Boers)

Free State; Orange Free State (a province in central South Africa that was colonized by the Boers; named Free State in 1997)

Durban (a port city in eastern South Africa on the Indian Ocean; resort and industrial center)

Kimberley (city in central South Africa; center for diamond mining and diamond marketing)

Johannesburg (city in the northeastern part of South Africa near Pretoria; commercial center for diamond and gold industries)

Cape Town (port city in southwestern South Africa; the seat of the legislative branch of the government of South Africa)

capital of South Africa; Pretoria (city in the Transvaal; the seat of the executive branch of the government of South Africa)

KwaZulu-Natal; Natal (a region of eastern South Africa on the Indian Ocean)

Meronyms (members of "South Africa"):

Batswana; Bechuana; Tswana (a member of a Bantu people living chiefly in Botswana and western South Africa)

South African (a native or inhabitant of South Africa)

Xhosa (a member of the Negroid people of southern South Africa)

Sotho (a member of the Bantu people who inhabit Botswana, Lesotho, and northern South Africa and who speak the Sotho languages)

Domain member region:

caffer; caffre; kaffir; kafir (an offensive and insulting term for any Black African)

mealie (an ear of corn)

kopje; koppie (a small hill rising up from the African veld)

Qibla (a small terrorist group of Muslims in South Africa formed in the 1980s; was inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini to create an Islamic state in South Africa)

PAGAD; People against Gangsterism and Drugs (a terrorist organization in South Africa formed in 1996 to fight drug lords; evolved into a vigilante group with anti-western views closely allied with Qibla; is believed to have ties to Islamic extremists in the Middle East; is suspected of conducting bouts of urban terrorism)

biltong (meat that is salted and cut into strips and dried in the sun)

laager; lager (a camp defended by a circular formation of wagons)

trek (a journey by ox wagon (especially an organized migration by a group of settlers))

Holonyms ("South Africa" is a part of...):

Africa (the second largest continent; located to the south of Europe and bordered to the west by the South Atlantic and to the east by the Indian Ocean)

Holonyms ("South Africa" is a member of...):

British Commonwealth; Commonwealth of Nations (an association of nations consisting of the United Kingdom and several former British colonies that are now sovereign states but still pay allegiance to the British Crown)

Derivation:

South African (of or pertaining to or characteristic of South Africa or its people)

Credits

Context examples:

To conduct the study, a multi-center team of scientists from throughout the U.S. and in South Africa formed the Prenatal Alcohol in SIDS and Stillbirth (PASS) Network.

(Combined prenatal smoking and drinking greatly increases SIDS risk, National Institutes of Health)

A country in southern Africa, an enclave of South Africa.

(Lesotho, NCI Thesaurus)

A country in southeastern Africa, bordering the Mozambique Channel, between South Africa and Tanzania.

(Mozambique, NCI Thesaurus)

But huge subterranean water reserves lie under the Kalahari, which covers parts of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.

(Sleeping sands of the Kalahari awaken after more than 10,000 years, NSF)

Rare species tend to cluster in a handful of hotspots, such as the Northern Andes in South America, Costa Rica, South Africa, Madagascar and Southeast Asia.

(Nearly 40% of plant species are very rare, and vulnerable to climate change, National Science Foundation)

The highest mortality rates from asthma were recorded in Thailand, Mauritius, Fiji, the Philippines and South Africa.

(Smoother walls healthier for lungs, SciDev.Net)

A cooperative group funded primarily by the NCI, one of the largest clinical cancer research organizations in the US, incorporating universities, medical centers, Community Clinical Oncology Programs, and Cooperative Group Outreach Programs with almost 6000 physicians, nurses, pharmacists, statisticians, and clinical research associates from the US, Canada, and South Africa.

(Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, NCI Thesaurus)

You had known Ralph Smith in South Africa.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Scientists from the University of Miami and Apex Shark Expeditions published a study, documenting the disappearance of the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) from a specific area off the coast of South Africa.

(Study indicates as great white shark disappears, living fossil moves in, Wikinews)