Boerewors

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A traditional South African sausage consisting of a mix of coarsely ground meats, typically beef and pork, seasoned with specific spices and often cooked over an open flame
2. This sausage, rooted in South African culinary culture, combines coarsely minced beef and pork or lamb, seasoned uniquely and usually cooked on a grill
3. A type of sausage from South Africa made by blending ground meats like beef and pork with distinctive spices and usually cooked on a barbecue

Etymology: Boerewors is a compound built from two Dutch-derived words: "boer", meaning farmer, and "wors", meaning sausage. Afrikaans, the language that grew out of Dutch spoken at the Cape, inherited both, and joined them into "boerewors", which means "farmer's sausage". The Afrikaans word then passed into English, where it names the coiled, spiced beef sausage that is a staple of South African cooking. The compound is plain in its structure, but it is worth noticing the first element. "Boer" in Dutch and Afrikaans was the ordinary word for a farmer, and the Afrikaans compound carries that sense straight into the name of the dish: a sausage made the way country households made it. The English borrowing keeps the Afrikaans spelling and the original two-part meaning intact, so the name still announces its own ingredients and origin.