Zaara

Proper noun

Zaara

1. (archaic) Sahara
   • The lions of Mount Atlas, the summit of which is sometimes covered with snow, have neither the courage, the strength, nor the ferocity of the lions of Biledulgerid or of Zaara, whose plains are covered with burning sands. It is chiefly in these fervid deserts that we meet with those terrible lions...1781, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, “Lions”, in William Smellie, transl., Histoire Naturelle
   • This ancient and faithful domestic, the pride of our island, uniting the useful, the brave and the docile, though sought by foreign nations and perpetuated on the continent, is nearly extinct where he probably was an aborigine, or is bastardized by numberless crosses, everyone of which degenerate...1800, Cynographia Britannica, English Mastiff