landdrost
English edit
Etymology edit
From South African Dutch landdrost, from land + drost.
Noun edit
landdrost (plural landdrosts)
- (now historical) A type of magistrate in South Africa, abolished under the British in 1827.
- 1979, André Brink, A Dry White Season, Vintage, published 1998, page 160:
- Remember the words of the young Bibault in the revolt against Van der Stel in 1706: ‘I shall not go. I am an Afrikaner and even if the landdrost kills me or puts me in jail I refuse to hold my tongue.’
- 2020, Sujit Sivasundaram, Waves Across the South, William Collins, published 2021, page 82:
- About ten years before this resistance movement the settlement comprised merely four houses, one of which was used by the landdrost.
Dutch edit
Etymology edit
From Middle Dutch landdrost. Equivalent to land + drost.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
landdrost m (plural landdrosten)
- (historical) An official and magistrate in rural jurisdictions during the Ancien Régime.
- (historical) A magistrate in the Cape Colony.
- (historical) The head of an unincorporated area in the Netherlands.
- (historical) The head of a department in the Kingdom of Holland.