SOUTH AFRICA

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does South Africa mean? 

• SOUTH AFRICA (noun)
  The noun SOUTH AFRICA has 1 sense:

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

  Familiarity information: SOUTH AFRICA used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SOUTH AFRICA (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)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

Republic of South Africa; South Africa

Instance hypernyms:

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

Meronyms (parts of "South Africa"):

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

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)

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)

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

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

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

Meronyms (members of "South Africa"):

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

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)

Domain member region:

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

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

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)

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)

 Context examples 

The study covers more than 8000 hours of shark observations in South Africa's False Bay spread out over the past 18 years.

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

The findings, which resulted from 15 years of research in South Africa's Karoo Basin, show that an event 250 million years ago devastated marine life but didn't affect life on land.

(Mass extinction of land and sea biodiversity 250 million years ago not simultaneous, National Science Foundation)

It has been epidemiologically linked to high incidence of human esophageal cancer in South Africa and China and to hepatocarcinogenesis in animal models.

(Fumonisin B1, NCI Thesaurus)

Previously, the world's oldest evidence for microbial life on land came from 2.7- 2.9 billion-year-old deposits in South Africa containing organic matter-rich ancient soils.

(First Life Ever on Land: 3.48 Billion Years Ago, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

It was in the days before—before you found it better to go to South Africa.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There we met two gentlemen, Mr. Carruthers and Mr. Woodley, who were home on a visit from South Africa.

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

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

(Lesotho, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

Researchers from Canada, South Africa and Italy have identified the new gene, called CDH2.

(Gene Causes Sudden Death in Young People, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

A country in southwestern Africa, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean, between Angola and South Africa.

(Namibia, NCI Thesaurus)

Two are in South Africa now, an' another's on a whaling voyage, an' one's travellin' with a circus—he does trapeze work.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)