rooibos
/ˈɹɔɪˌbɔs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.89 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "The air is aromatic with buchu (Rutaceae), pines, rooibos (Aspalathus linearis), and, of course, the cedars for which these mountains are named."
- "Love it or hate it, rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) is as much a part of this region as rock art, velskoen and stunning spring flowers."
- "Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis, Fabaceae) is a plant that is indigenous only to the Cedarburg Mountain Range near Cape Town, South Africa. Wilson (2005, p140) notes that the mountain-dwelling people of the Khoikhoi were the first to use rooibos as a tea and, had it not been for them, rooibos would probably simply have remained an unutilized bush. The name ‘rooibos’ is an Afrikaans word meaning red bush for which the plant has been commonly known since at least the 1960s and probably back to the 1940s, and which is perceived as part of the country's heritage (Cheney and Scholtz, 1963)."
- "The respondent obtained the registration of a trade mark for bush tea, one essential particular of which was the name of "Rooibosch" tea. Before the registration the same kind of tea had been known by several names one of them being Red bush tea, or in Dutch "Roodebosch" tea, and the appellants had sold similar tea under that appellation."
- "During the past twenty years or so farmers in the Cedarberg region, from Citrusdal to Nieuwoudtville, have raised the rooibos tea industry from obscurity to minor boom."
- "Antioxidants are hot topics in the health news these days, and an herbal tea called rooibos (pronounced ROY-boss) is becoming popular partly because it is being marketed as a healthy beverage with high levels of antioxidants. The rooibos plant (Aspalathus linearis (Burm. f.) Dahlgren, Fabaceae) is a South African flowering shrub used to make a mild-tasting tea that has no caffeine, very little tannin, and significant amounts of polyphenol antioxidants."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: rooi
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɹɔɪˌbɔs/
- British English: /ˈɹɔɪ.bɒs/