landdrost

From South African Dutch landdrost, from land + drost.

landdrost (plural landdrosts)

1. (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.

From Middle Dutch landdrost. Equivalent to land +‎ drost.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɑn(t).drɔst/

• Audio

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• Hyphenation: land‧drost

landdrost m (plural landdrosten)

1. (historical) An official and magistrate in rural jurisdictions during the Ancien Régime.
2. (historical) A magistrate in the Cape Colony.
3. (historical) The head of an unincorporated area in the Netherlands.
4. (historical) The head of a department in the Kingdom of Holland.

• Afrikaans: landdros
  • English: landdros
• → English: landdrost