resettle, verb transitive

Origin:
Probably a back-formation from resettlement.
To move (a person or community) from one area to another in terms of apartheid legislation; to compel (a person or community) by law to move from one area to another; relocate; remove. See also resettlement.
1970 Post 18 Oct. 18People belonging to other ethnic groups will be resettled in their respective homelands in future.
1977 E. Prov. Herald 29 Nov. 7The ground near Addo will be used to resettle Africans at present under the jurisdiction of the management board.
1980 J. Cock Maids & Madams 313There are no..work opportunities other than building houses for the further 5000 people it is ultimately planned to resettle there.
1981 Pace Sept. 16The Government is rumoured to have set itself 1985 as the year by which all black people — except those needed as workers in so-called ‘white’ South Africa — will have been nicely resettled in their respective homelands.
1987 E. Prov. Herald 18 Sept. 9More than 126 000 families, more than 600 000 people, were resettled in terms of the Group Areas Act between 1950 and 1984, according to the constitutional committee of the President’s Council.
1991 Race Rel. News (S.A.I.R.R.) Vol.53 No.1, 19About 30 000 Africans were removed from the white urban areas and resettled.
To move (a person or community) from one area to another in terms of apartheid legislation; to compel (a person or community) by law to move from one area to another; relocate; remove.
Derivatives:
Hence resettled  participial adjective, forcibly removed; relocated, see relocate.
1971 Seek June 11The M.U...has channelled..materials, sewing machines and household goods to centres where ‘resettled’ women struggle to keep alive themselves and their dependants.
1979 Sunday Post 12 July 1The resettled people felt that no one was representing them.
1982 E. Prov. Herald 19 Apr. 7Thousands of people may have to leave homes in which they have been born and bred, places where some families have existed for generations, to join the thousands more resettled people who have been on the move since 1974.
1988 E. Prov. Herald 24 June 6E. Cape had most resettled blacks.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

19701991

Derivatives

resettled

Browse Related Words

By Category

Apartheid Law
Government and Administration
reserve, nounn.resettlement, nounn.
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary Unit for South African English