Also 8 crawl, 8–9 craal, 9 crall, kraul. See also CRAWL sb.2 [a. Colonial Du. kraal, a. Pg. curral, corral: see CORRAL.]
1. A village of Hottentots, Kaffirs, or other South or Central African natives, consisting of a collection of huts surrounded by a fence or stockade, and often having a central space for cattle, etc. Also transf. the community of such a village.
1731. Medley, Kolben’s Cape G. Hope, I. 75. The Kraals, as they call them, or villages, of the Hassaquas are larger.
1771. Sir J. Banks, Jrnl. (1896), 441. They [the Cape Hottentots] train up bulls, which they place round their crawls or towns in the night.
1785. G. Forster, trans. Sparrman’s Voy. Cape G. Hope, I. 179. A craal or community of Hottentots, to the amount of about thirty persons.
1836. Penny Cycl., V. 229. Kraals of Bosjesmans north of the Orange river who seemed to live in peace under a chief.
1849. E. E. Napier, Excurs. S. Africa, I. 316. The huts which compose their kraals are of a circular form.
1891. R. W. Murray, S. Africa, 194. A kraal is, in Kaffir idiom, a collection of huts surrounded by mud walls or palisading, in which human beings live.
b. Used loosely for a poor hut or hovel.
1832. G. Downes, Lett. Cont. Countries, I. 70. That solitary attraction which the poorest kraals of Ireland possess—hospitality.
2. An enclosure for cattle or sheep (esp. in South or Central Africa); a stockade, pen, fold. (Cf. CRAWL sb.2 1.) In quot. 1861 applied to an enclosure formed by wagons.
1796. trans. Thunberg’s Cape G. H., in Pinkerton’s Voy. (1814), XVI. 23. A place or fold, where sheep as well as horned cattle were inclosed in the open air, was called a Kraal.
1834. Pringle, Afr. Sk., iv. 180. He led us out towards the kraals or cattle-folds.
1849. E. E. Napier, Excurs. S. Africa, I. 313. At the door of the Calf kraal.
1861. G. F. Berkeley, Sportsm. W. Prairies, xi. 179. My three waggons could not make a crall or fence around my mules and horses.
1878. H. M. Stanley, Dark Cont., II. vii. 202. The traveler’s first duty in lands infested with lions is to build a safe corral, kraal, or boma, for himself and oxen.
3. attrib. and Comb.
1817. Coleridge, Ess. Own Times (1850), III. 957. The Kraul-men from whose errors they absterged themselves.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t. (1883), 209. The selectmen of an African kraal-village.
1900. Daily Tel., 5 June, 7/5. The English Yeomanry horses had been kraaled, and, taking fright at the firing, burst through the kraal walls and stampeded.
