different between fence vs zeriba

English

Etymology

From Middle English fence, fens, short for defence, defens (“the act of defending”), from Old French defens, defense (see defence).

The sense "enclosure" arises in the mid 15th century.Also from the 15th century is use as a verb in the sense "to enclose with a fence". The generalized sense "to defend, screen, protect" arises ca. 1500. The sense "to fight with swords (rapiers)" is from the 1590s (Shakespeare).

Displaced native Old English edor.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f?ns/, [f?ns], [f?nts]
• Rhymes: -?ns

Noun

fence (countable and uncountable, plural fences)

1. A thin artificial barrier that separates two pieces of land or a house perimeter.
2. Someone who hides or buys and sells stolen goods, a criminal middleman for transactions of stolen goods.
3. (by extension) The place whence such a middleman operates.
4. Skill in oral debate.
5. (obsolete, uncountable) The art or practice of fencing.
6. A guard or guide on machinery.
7. (figuratively) A barrier, for example an emotional barrier.
8. (computing, programming) A memory barrier.

Hyponyms

• catch fence
• electric fence
• picket fence

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Pennsylvania German: Fens

Translations

See also

• wire netting
• wire gauze

Verb

fence (third-person singular simple present fences, present participle fencing, simple past and past participle fenced)

1. (transitive) To enclose, contain or separate by building fence.
2. (transitive) To defend or guard.
3. (transitive) To engage in the selling or buying of stolen goods.

   • The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

4. (intransitive, sports) To engage in the sport of fencing.
5. (intransitive, equestrianism) To jump over a fence.
6. (intransitive) To conceal the truth by giving equivocal answers; to hedge; to be evasive.
   • 1981, A. D. Hope, "His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell," A Book of Answers:

     A lady, sir, as you will find, / Keeps counsel, or she speaks her mind, / Means what she says and scorns to fence / And palter with feigned innocence.

Synonyms

• (to sell or buy stolen goods): pawn

Derived terms

• ring-fence, ringfence

Translations

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?f?nt?s?]
• Rhymes: -?nts?
• Hyphenation: fen?ce

Noun

fence

1. dative singular of fenka
2. locative singular of fenka

English

Alternative forms

• zareba (particularly in figurative uses)
• seriba, sariba
• zerybeh
• zereba, zareeba, zerriba

Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic ????????? (zar?ba, “pen, cattle pen”).

Noun

zeriba (plural zeribas)

1. (historical) A fence of the type once commonly improvised in northeastern Africa from thornbushes.
   • 1849, Charles William O’Reilly (translator), Expedition to Discover the Sources of the White Nile by Ferdinand Werne, London: Richard Bentley, Volume II, Chapter 5, p. 112,^[1]

     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.

   • 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,^[2]

     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 the Egyptian administration in that region.

2. (by extension) An improvised stockade, particularly those similarly located and constructed.
   • 1884, The Times, 11 March, 1884, p. 5,

     The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) advanced this morning to Baker Pasha’s zariba.
3. (by extension) A camp of troops employing such an enclosure.
   • 1887, The Times, 9 April, 1887, p. 5,

     […] forming a zariba, or square, to resist cavalry.

4. (by extension) Any wild and barbed barrier, evocative of a briar or thorn patch.
   • 1910, P. G. Wodehouse, “Deep Waters” in Collier’s, Volume 45, 28 May, 1910, p. 18,^[4]

     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.

   • 1940, Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory, London: Vintage, 2001, Chapter 2,

     […] 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.

   • 1944, Miles Burton, The Three Corpse Trick, London: Collins, Chapter 5,^[5]

     The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.

   • 1961, P. G. Wodehouse, Ice in Bedroom, New York: Simon & Schuster, Chapter 7, p. 52,

     Owing to his obiter dicta having to be filtered through a zareba of white hair, it was not always easy to catch exactly what Mr. Cornelius said.

Verb

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

1. To erect or take refuge within a zeriba.
   • 1885, R. F. T. Gascoigne, “To Within a Mile of Khartoum,” The Nineteenth Century, No. 101, July 1885, p. 89,^[6]

     […] the Brigadier ordered the force to zereba on the best position that was near.

   • 1911, “Somaliland” in the Encyclopædia Britannica 11th ed., Vol. 25, p. 382,^[7]

     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.

Further reading

• Zeriba in the 1920 edition of Encyclopedia Americana.

Anagrams

• braize

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic ????????? (zar?ba, “pen, cattle pen”).

Noun

zeriba f (plural zeribe)

1. zeriba (African type of fence)