Veld
/vɛlt/noun
Open, uncultivated grassland or scrubland, especially in southern Africa.
Did you know?Veld entered English from Afrikaans, but its ancestry reaches back to the same Germanic word that produced English “field,” linking South African grasslands to everyday European farmland.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*pelh₂-
“To spread out or lie flat; a proposed ancestral root associated with open ground.”
Proto-Germanic
PGmc
*felþą
“Open land, field, or tract of countryside.”
Old English
Old English
feld
“A field or stretch of open country.”
Middle Dutch
Middle Dutch
velt
“Field, open land, or countryside.”
17th Century
Afrikaans
veld
“Open country or uncultivated grassland in southern Africa.”
19th Century
English
veld
“South African open grassland or scrubland, adopted as a regional loanword.”