English edit

Etymology edit

In allusion to the gap that separated Salisbury (Harare) from the border crossing point with South Africa at Beitbridge.

Verb edit

gap it

  1. (slang, historical) Of a white inhabitant of Rhodesia: to emigrate from the country during its transition to independence.
    Synonym: take the gap
    • 2015, Hannes Wessels, A Handful of Hard Men: The SAS and the Battle for Rhodesia, page 265:
      [] but that he would out-think and out-manoeuvre whatever they could throw at us and if we had to gap it because the odds were insurmountable, who better to be with than Darrell.
    • 2019, David Kenrick, Decolonisation, Identity and Nation in Rhodesia, 1964-1979, page 2:
      By 1979, thousands had 'gapped it', or taken the 'chicken run', as emigration was derisively known []

See also edit