Also 8 karo, 9 karro. [Of Hottentot origin; but the precise etymology is uncertain. According to Lichtenstein (1811), and Burchell (1822), karoo or karro is a Namaqua Hottentot adj. meaning ‘hard,’ but later authorities give for this ka·rusa (Tindall, 1857) or ga·rosa (Kroenlein 1889), while the modern Hottentot name for the karroo is said to be Toró (Kroenlein). Garo ‘desert,’ has also been suggested as a possible source. Lichtenstein and Burchell may have wrongly identified Toró or garo with the adj. meaning ‘hard.’ (See J. Platt, in N. & Q., 9th s. IV. 105; Athenæum, 19 May 1900.)
The earlier spellings indicate a pron. (kărō·); it is not clear whether (kărū·) is a phonetic development of this or due to the influence of Dutch orthography.]
The name given to barren tracts in South Africa, consisting of extensive elevated plateaus, with a clayey soil, which during the dry season are entirely waterless and arid.
The Great Karoo extends over an area 300 miles from West to East, and from 70 to 80 from South to North, in the center of Cape Colony.
1789. Paterson, Narr. 4 Journeys, 44. Next day we proceeded through what the Dutch call Karo, an extensive plain.
1812. Anne Plumptre, trans. Lichtenstein’s Trav. S. Afr., 112. The Great Karroo, as it is called, a parched and arid plain.
1822. Burchell, Trav., I. 207. A range of mountains, of moderate height, separates the great Karro from the inhabited parts of the colony.
1845. Darwin, Jrnl. Beagle, v. 89. Rhinoceroses and elephants [roaming] over the Karros of Southern Africa.
1847. Nat. Encycl., I. 256. The karoos in the dry season are almost as barren as the wastes of the Sahara.
1880. S. Africa (ed. 3), 155. Grasses and herbage found on the … Veldts and the Karroo.
b. attrib., as karoo bush, country, desert, shrub; also karoo beds, formation, series, an important South African series of rocks, of Triassic age, chiefly sandstone mixed with volcanic matter; karoo ground, a yellowish iron-clay.
1836. Penny Cycl., VI. 257/2. The Great Karroo … is one of the most barren and desolate spots imaginable…. The soil is a sand mixed with clay containing particles of iron, which gives it a yellowish colour: all soil of a similar colour in other parts of the Colony is called by the name of Karroo ground.
1842. Moffat, Miss. Tours S. Afr., i. 17. The Karroo country … is a parched and arid plain.
1876. Encycl. Brit., V. 42/1. The ‘Karroo beds’ … are believed from the abundance of fossil wood and fresh-water shells to be of lacustrine origin.
1885. Rider Haggard, K. Solomon’s Mines, v. 64. The waterless desert covered with a species of karoo shrub.
1886. H. Carvell Lewis, Papers on the Diamond (1897), 7. The diamond-bearing pipes [at Kimberley] penetrate strata of Triassic age which are known as the Karoo beds. Ibid. The Kimberley shales belong to the lower Karoo formation.
