Also 8–9 quacha, 9 -ccha, kwagga. [South African. The earliest authorities give it as a Hottentot word, writing it quacha (Juncker, 1710), quaiha (Kolbe, 1719, prob. a misprint), or quagga (Sparrman, 1783), but it is now current in Xosa-Kaffir in the form iqwara, with clicking q and guttural r. (J. Platt, in Athenæum, 19 May, 1900).] a. A South African equine quadruped (Equus or Hippotigris Quagga), related to the ass and zebra, but less fully striped than the latter. b. Burchell’s zebra.
The true quagga is believed to have been exterminated about 1873.
1785. G. Forster, trans. Sparrman’s Voy. Cape G. Hope, I. 223. One of the animals called quaggas by the Hottentots and colonists.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), VI. 713. The quacha, or quagga.
1815. Sir J. Barrow, Travels, 320. The Qua-cha, which was long thought to be the female Zebra, is now known to be of a species entirely different.
1834. Pringle, Afr. Sk., viii. 274. It [the poor quagga] is a timid animal, with a gait and figure much resembling those of an ass.
1839. Darwin, Jrnl. Beagle, v. 100. Two zebras, and the quaccha, two gnus, and several antelopes. Ibid. (1859), Orig. Spec., v. (1873), 128. The quagga, though so plainly barred like a zebra over the body, is without bars on the legs.
attrib. 1899. Q. Rev., Oct., 412. The quagga-hybrid was less striped than many dun-coloured horses.
