Knobkerry definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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First comes the able-bodied though elderly sire carrying a few light throwing-spears and a knobkerry or a gim-crack stabbing-spear, and close behind him are the adult males of his house similarly armed or with a rifle or two supplied by a benevolent Government for protection against the Mullah, to whom these children of nature frequently offer them for sale at very reasonable prices.

—Pan-Islam

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Definitions (1)

American Heritage Dictionary

Century Dictionary

GNU Webster's 1913

WordNet (1)

a short wooden club with a heavy knob on one end; used by aborigines in southern Africa

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Examples (10)

There was a rush of bare feet on the soft deck, and through the gloom Carey was just able to make out that they were surrounded by a party of blacks, each poising a spear ready to throw and holding in his other hand either a knobkerry or a boomerang Go mumkull white fellow; baal, lie down, quiet, still This was said in a fierce voice by one of the savage-looking fellows, and Carey mastered the desire to bound away and take refuge below Who are you? — King o' the Beach A Tropic Tale
Another clubs a recalcitrant foeman over the head with a knobkerry, and having thus reduced him to a more amenable frame of mind, hoists him over the parapet and drags him after his "kamarad Other parties are told off to deal with the dug-outs. — All in It : K(1) Carries On A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand
Zululand frontier, growled over his assegai and knobkerry. — The Romance of a Pro-Consul Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir George Grey, K.C.B.
A knobkerry is a stick with — In the Ranks of the C.I.V.
First comes the able-bodied though elderly sire carrying a few light throwing-spears and a knobkerry or a gim-crack stabbing-spear, and close behind him are the adult males of his house similarly armed or with a rifle or two supplied by a benevolent Government for protection against the Mullah, to whom these children of nature frequently offer them for sale at very reasonable prices. — Pan-Islam