kaffir bread

9.9

A South African plant whose thick starchy centre people eat

noun

Archaic

: pan kaffir

The starchy pith of the kaffir bread was once an important food source for indigenous South African communities.

Examples

In some regions, people still harvest kaffir bread for its edible qualities.
Botanists studied the growth patterns of kaffir bread in different soil types.
I love kaffir bread with butter.
Have you ever tried kaffir bread?
The starchy pith of the kaffir bread was once an important food source for indigenous South African communities.
In some regions, people still harvest kaffir bread for its edible qualities.
Botanists studied the growth patterns of kaffir bread in different soil types.

Synonyms

Encephalartos caffer

vskaffir bread

Specialized

9.9

A palm-like South African plant whose starchy inner part people sometimes eat

treats the fruit pith as a regular food source rather than an occasional one

Surface Forms

kaffir bread singular

kaffir breads plural

Morphology

kaffir + bread

A B1 learner who knows 'kaffir' (a type of sorghum) and 'bread' (a baked food) would most likely infer a food made from kaffir, not a specific South African cycad whose starchy pith is eaten. The actual botanical referent and usage as the name of a plant is not predictable from the constituents, so the expression is not compositional for learners.

Etymology

Kaffir bread may come from a simple scene: early settlers saw local people make a kind of bread from the plant's soft, starchy inside, so they called the plant kaffir bread. That's why the name refers to a cycad whose pith was used as 'food'.