Meaning of Hottentot | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A member of the Khoekhoe group of peoples.
   archaic, offensive
2. The language of the Khoekhoe, remarkable for its clicks.
3. Any of several fish of the genus Pachymetopon, in the family Sparidae.
4. A member of the broader Khoisan group of peoples.
   archaic, broadly, offensive

Equivalents

Examples

“1798-1801, Lady Ann Barnard, Letters and Journals I was told that the Hottentots were uncommonly ugly and disgusting, but I do not think them so bad. Their features are small and their cheekbones immense, but they have a kind expression and countenance.”

“They were called "Bushmen" because they led a nomadic life based on hunting and gathering in bushveld. The first written appearance of the Khoisan people, represented by the Bushmen and the Hottentots, dates back to the tenth century.”

“The Hottentots (Khoisan peoples) once an independent nation but whose simple tribal system had disintegrated rapidly as they were relentlessly displaced from their traditional grazing grounds and driven deep into the still uninhabited interior […]”

“The Hottentots (Khoisan) of either sex, young and old, who were in the boor's service, always choose to sleep in the fireplace.”

“The Dutch colonists in this frontier district, two years after an uprising of the Khoisan (“Hottentots”), were wary of the newly installed British regime at the Cape of Good Hope.”

“First, in 1828, all legal disabilities on the free people of colour, particularly the Khoisan [Hottentots], were removed by Ordinance 50.”

“Ive tried her with every […] possible sort of sound that a human being can make— […] Continental dialects, African dialects, Hottentot […] clicks, things it took me years to get hold of; and […] she picks them up like a shot, right away, as if she had […] been at it all her life.”

CEFR level