kopje

plural kopjes · alternative koppie

1. South AfricaA small hill or mound, especially on the African veld.

   On the koppie behind the village, the unsightly red-and-white skeleton of an FM tower.

   1978, André Brink, Rumours of Rain, Vintage, published 2000, page 72

   4 more examples

   In one spot only was the solemn monotony of the plain broken. Near the center a small solitary “kopje” rose. Alone it lay there, a heap of round ironstones piled one upon the other, as over some giant’s grave.

   1883 June, Ralph Iron [pseudonym; Olive Schreiner], “Shadows from Child-life. The Watch.”, in The Story of an African Farm, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: H. M. Caldwell Company, →OCLC, part I, page 9

   We selected a lichenous kopje perhaps fifteen yards away, and landed neatly on its summit one after the other.

   1900 December – 1901 August, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “Prospecting Begins”, in The First Men in the Moon, London: George Newnes, […], published 1901, →OCLC, page 105

   It was nearly noon when he reached the great bowlder at the top of which terminated the secret passage to the pits beneath the city. Like a cat he scaled the precipitous sides of the frowning granite kopje.

   1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 206

   Martha looked over a mile or so of bush to a strip of pink ploughed land; […] and then, ridge after ridge, fold after fold, the bush stretched to a line of blue kopjes.

   1952, Doris Lessing, Martha Quest, Panther, published 1974, page 8