boerewors, noun

Forms:
Formerly also boerwors, boer worst.
Origin:
AfrikaansShow more Afrikaans, boere see boere + wors (earlier worst) sausage.
1. A popular traditional sausage, usually a coarsely-ground mixture of beef and pork seasoned with various spices; boerie; also called wors (sense 1). Also attributive. See also braaiwors (braai noun sense 4).
[1913 A. Glossop Barnes’s S. Afr. Hsehold Guide 320Farmer’s Sausages...To make 4 lb.: Take 3½ lb. beef, and ½ lb. fat pork, put it through the sausage machine.]
1930 M. Raubenheimer Tested S. Afr. Recipes 107Boer Worst (beef sausage).
1937 Handbk for Farmers (Dept of Agric. & Forestry) 1171Sausage (Boerwors). 10 lb. beef 5 lb. pork or mutton fat (tail fat) 4 tablespoons ground coriander (1 oz.) 4 tablespoons salt (2 oz.).
1949 L.G. Green In Land of Afternoon 63Boerewors..may be defined as a game sausage dating back years before the Great Trek; a sausage in which the meat has been pounded with a wooden stamper rather than minced. Modern boerewors, which is not to be despised, is usually a mixture of lean beef with pork fat, seasoned with wine or vinegar.
1956 A.G. McRae Hill Called Grazing 74I’d bought a yard-and-a-half of boerwors, the coarse Boer sausage which I love.
c1965 State of S. Afr. 1965 107Boerewors is the sausage that reigns supreme throughout the country.
1966 L.G. Berger Where’s Madam 57At night the braaivleis really came into its own, with flickering flames, soggy salads in chipped enamel basins and a million yards of mottled pink boerewors.
1974 E. Prov. Herald 28 Aug. 32Boerewors, our typical South African sausage, is a mixture of beef and pork and even fat game flavoured with coriander, ground clove, ground peppercorn, thyme, sage with vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.
1980 A. Paton Towards Mountain 207Prayers were said over the wagons, meat and boerewors were cooked over the fires, nostalgic Afrikaner liedjies were sung.
1984 R. Kenyon in Reader’s Digest Jan. 39There is little delicacy in dealing with boerewors. In its raw state, you grapple with it like a snake charmer — great untamed metres of slippery, blotchy, pink python.
1989 Sunday Times 19 Nov. (Mag. Sect.) 10Pavement boerewors wagons..started as a novelty, became a craze, then a nuisance and then a headline story as the cops moved in asking for a licence.
1990 T. Mkhwanazi in Weekly Mail 2 Feb. 23Our hostess left and re-entered the room with a bowl of pap and another of boerewors — testimony to the ironic merging of the culture of indigenous people of Namibia with the culture of their arch enemies.
1991 Natal Mercury 2 Apr. 2Boerewors casings are imported from New Zealand.
2. Figurative, always attributive, designating things made in or pertaining to South Africa, or people who are typically South African.
1974 Sunday Times 12 May 28Instead of producing ‘boerewors Westerns’, the company will now concentrate on South African War films for TV.
1975 Evening Post 21 Jan. 4She is soon to start filming a ‘boerewors’ Western, ‘My Naam is Dingetjie’, which is a send-up of the Trinity films.
1979 Sunday Times 2 Sept. (Mag. Sect.) 1He came back to South Africa for four tours before the boerewors curtain dropped on him.
1990 L.R. Dowling in Fair Lady 11 Apr. 41How would I describe myself? I’m a boerewors meisie. But also someone who likes to believe that fairies exist.
A popular traditional sausage, usually a coarsely-ground mixture of beef and pork seasoned with various spices; boerie; also called wors (sense 1). Also attributive.
always attributive, designating things made in or pertaining to South Africa, or people who are typically South African.
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19131991