Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An evergreen shrub (Catha edulis) native to tropical East Africa and Arabia, having dark green opposite leaves that contain stimulants.
- noun The leaves of this plant, chewed for their stimulating effect.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun See
kafta .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
shrub (Catha edulis) whose leaves are used as a mild stimulant when chewed or brewed as tea; also adrug produced from this plant.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the leaves of the shrub Catha edulis which are chewed like tobacco or used to make tea; has the effect of a euphoric stimulant
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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A lot of time, they're chewing khat, which is this amphetamine-like twig that sort of makes them all tweaked out by the end of the day.
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Quick research about Somali pirates will reveal a culture dependent on a nausea-killing plant called khat, or 'miraa' in Swahili.
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com The Huffington Post News Editors 2012
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There is quite a ritual to chewing khat, which is usually done sprawled on the floor, preferably on a carpet or blanket, with cushions to lean on.
BBC News - Home 2012
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Yemenis chew a stimulant called khat every afternoon.
NPR Topics: News 2010
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Among them: chewing the mild narcotic known as khat and trading in drugs and prostitution.
UNICEF News 2010
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And they see how countless Somali families are ruined, because the family father is too dependent on khat, which is also helping to support al-Shabaab.
Islam in Europe Esther 2010
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Police recovered a drug called khat during a search of the vehicle.
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Yemenis chew a stimulant called khat every afternoon.
NPR Topics: News 2010
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Police recovered a drug called khat during a search of the vehicle.
WTVM - 1- WTVM Home 2010
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Police recovered a drug called khat during a search of the vehicle.
WTVM - 1- WTVM Home 2010
chained_bear commented on the word khat
Alternate spelling of qat. I like qat much better, though as a rule I do like kh- words... but I like even better q- words that don't have U's following the Q. :)
March 18, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word khat
Arabic /qa:t/, Somali jaad, so 'qat' is a better English spelling than 'khat'.
July 4, 2008
madmouth commented on the word khat
agreed. we need 'kh' for /x/ (as 'x' would be horribly misleading)
July 2, 2009
knitandpurl commented on the word khat
"Hassan wants a catnap and grabs, as a calmant, hash, grass and smack, khat, ganja and tabac — an amalgam that can spark a pharmacal flashback."
Eunoia by Christian Bök (upgraded edition), p 17
May 20, 2010
chamb244 commented on the word khat
The thing is, this word is pronounced quite differently by Ethiopians, Somalis and Yemenis (distinguishing the transliterations "khat" & "qat" doesn't seem to capture this in practice). It would be helpful to note which country/language a recorded pronunciation is meant to refer to.
January 9, 2011