blesbok, noun

/ˈblesbɔk/
Forms:
blessboc, blessbokShow more Also blessboc, blessbok, blesse-bôk, bliss bock.
Plurals:
unchanged, or blesboks.
Origin:
South African DutchShow more South African Dutch, bles blaze + bok antelope, goat; see quotation 1824.
The antelope Damaliscus dorcas phillipsi of the Bovidae; blesbuck. Also attributive.
Note:
See note at bontebok.
1824 W.J. Burchell Trav. II. 335The Blesbok is so called, from having a white mark on its forehead, similar to that which, in horses, is termed, in Dutch, a bles, and by English horsemen a star, or blaze.
1835 T.H. Bowker Journal. 26 Apr.Bliss Bocks Quaggas & other game to be found here.
1863 Lady Duff-Gordon in F. Galton Vacation Tourists (1864) III. 190Yesterday Captain D— gave me a very nice caross of blessbok skins which he got from some travelling trader.
1871 J. McKay Reminisc. 14Throughout the greater part of the plains frequented by blesboks,..the sunbaked hills or mounds of clay formed by the white ants occur.
1882 J. Nixon Among Boers 119The blesbok is a larger and clumsier antelope than the springbok. Its head looks almost too heavy for its body, and it never takes long leaps like the springbok.
1896 R. Ward Rec. of Big Game 83Formerly to be numbered by hundreds of thousands, the beautiful Blesbok has in the last twenty years grown very scarce indeed.
a1936 E.N. Marais Soul of Ape (1973) 82The vast herds of bontebok (Damaliscus pygargus), blesbok (Damaliscus albifrons)..are on the verge of extinction or have vanished because they were unable to exist in the Bushveld which lay as a harbour of refuge before them.
1949 J. Mockford Golden Land 216With the springbok were battalions of wildebeest, and brigades of blesbok.
1973 Farmer’s Weekly 30 May (Suppl.) 25Live Blesbok for sale at R24 each.
1988 A. Van Wyk in S. Afr. Panorama Oct. 45The blesbok..has a reddish brown body colour, with a white face blaze that is divided by a narrow transverse brown band between the eyes.
1991 Personality 5 Aug. 27Blesbok with blood staining their white blazes after they gored each other because of the stress of confinement.
1994 M. Roberts tr. of J.A. Wahlberg’s Trav. Jrnls 1838–56 64First skoft 4 hours through immense plains covered with blesbok (my first).
The antelope Damaliscus dorcas phillipsi of the Bovidae; blesbuck. Also attributive.
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bles, nounn.blesbuck, nounn.
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