zeriba

noun

1. (historical)A fence of the type once commonly improvised in northeastern Africa from thornbushes.

   “On the left shore two neat farmyards shew themselves in a shining seriba of reeds, the stalks of which are connected very regularly with each other, but perhaps only afford resistance to tame animals.”

2. (broadly)An improvised stockade, particularly those similarly located and constructed.

   “The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) advanced this morning to Baker Pasha’s zariba.”

   “I clutched at a gun - my pockets were full of cartridges - and, parting the thorn bushes at the gate of our zareba, quickly slipped out.”

3. (broadly)A camp of troops employing such an enclosure.

   “[…] forming a zariba, or square, to resist cavalry.”

4. (broadly)Any wild and barbed barrier, evocative of a briar or thorn patch.

   “Once you had passed the initial zareba of fruit stands, souvenir stands, ice-cream stands, and the lair of the enthusiast whose aim in life it was to sell you picture postal-cards, and had won through to the long walk where the seats were, you were practically alone with Nature.”

   “[…] a small withered soldier sat by the prison door with a gun between his knees and the shadows of the palms pointed at him like a zareba of sabres.”

   “The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.”

   “Owing to his obiter dicta having to be filtered through a zareba of white hair, it was not always easy to catch exactly what Mr. Cornelius said.”

verb

1. To erect or take refuge within a zeriba.

   “[…] the Brigadier ordered the force to zereba on the best position that was near.”

   “On the 2nd of June a small force, zeribaed under Captain Malcolm McNeill, was attacked by the mullah’s followers but repulsed after desperate fighting.”