Word.ws English Dictionary

doek

doek noun: a cloth.

Noun

doek (plural doeke or doeks)

  1. (South Africa) A cloth.
  2. (South Africa) A kopdoek: a kerchief or bandanna worn as a head covering.
    • He said: “What have you got that filthy doek on your head for?”1965, Doris Lessing, Landlocked, HarperPerennial, published 1995, page 227
    • "Mama, how about a doek for Janet?"
    • The doek! God save our gracious doek! A doek is a colourful piece of cloth that the African woman wears as headgear. It is tied stylistically into various shapes from Accra to Cape Town. I do not know the history of this innocuous piece of cloth. In Afrikans, the language of those of our white...1982, Can Themba, The Will to Die

Forms of doek

pluraldoeke
pluraldoeks

Origin of doek

Borrowed from Afrikaans doek (“cloth”), from Dutch doek, from Middle Dutch doec, from Old Dutch *duok, from Proto-West Germanic *dōk, from Proto-Germanic *dōkaz. Doublet of duck.

Questions about doek

What does doek mean?
Doek means a cloth.
What part of speech is doek?
Doek is a noun.
What is the plural of doek?
The plural of doek is doeke.

Words near doek in the dictionary

  1. doeglings
  2. Doehring
  3. Doehrings
  4. doeing
  5. doeings
  6. doek
  7. doeke
  8. doeks
  9. Doel
  10. doelike
  11. doeling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doek (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “doek.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doek. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.