zeriba

/zəˈɹiːbə/

zeriba noun: a fence of the type once commonly improvised in northeastern Africa from thornbushes.

Noun

zeriba (plural zeribas)

(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.1849, Ferdinand Werne, chapter 5, in Charles William O’Reilly, transl., Expedition to Discover the Sources of the White Nile, volume II, London: Richard Bentley, page 112
- In Arabic zeriba means any kind of rough and ready fenced enclosure; hence the expression “zeriba country” applied by some geographers to the northern slope of the Nile-Congo divide, where the Arab traders and slave-hunters had founded numerous palisaded stations long before the establishment of...1895, A. H. Keane, Africa, Volume I, North Africa, (Stanford’s Compendium of Geography and Travel), London: Edward Stanford, Chapter 5, p. 245, footnote 1
(broadly) An improvised stockade, particularly those similarly located and constructed.
- The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) advanced this morning to Baker Pasha’s zariba.1884 March 11, The Times, page 5
- 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.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
(broadly) A camp of troops employing such an enclosure.
- […] forming a zariba, or square, to resist cavalry.1887 April 9, The Times, page 5
(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.1910 May 28, P. G. Wodehouse, “Deep Waters”, in Collier’s, volume 45, page 18
- […] 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.1940, Graham Greene, chapter 2, in The Power and the Glory, London: Vintage, published 2001

Verb

zeriba (third-person singular simple present zeribas, present participle zeribaing, simple past and past participle zeribaed)

To erect or take refuge within a zeriba.
- […] the Brigadier ordered the force to zereba on the best position that was near.1885 July, R. F. T. Gascoigne, “To Within a Mile of Khartoum”, in The Nineteenth Century, number 101, page 89
- 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.1911, Somaliland, 11th edition, volume 25, Encyclopædia Britannica, page 382

Forms of zeriba

Noun
plural	zeribas
alternative form	zareba
alternative form	zariba
alternative form	seriba
alternative form	sariba
alternative form	zerybeh
alternative form	zereba
alternative form	zareeba
alternative form	zerriba
Verb
third-person singular present	zeribas
present participle	zeribaing
past participle	zeribaed
past	zeribaed

Origin of zeriba

Borrowed from Arabic زَرِيبَة (zarība, “pen, cattle pen”).

Questions about zeriba

What does zeriba mean?: Zeriba means a fence of the type once commonly improvised in northeastern Africa from thornbushes.
What part of speech is zeriba?: Zeriba can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce zeriba?: Zeriba is pronounced /zəˈɹiːbə/.
What is the plural of zeriba?: The plural of zeriba is zeribas.

Words near zeriba in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: zeriba (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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