Dorp

Dorp must be a common word in South Africa. I kept running across it in my reading of Burger's Daughter by Nadine Gordimer and finally took the time to get online and look up the word.

A dorp [dawrp] is a village; hamlet. Wikipedia says, "Dorp is a village or small town, from the Dutch or Afrikaans word dorp; in English its use refers chiefly to South Africa." A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet, but smaller than a town or city. A hamlet is usually too small to be considered a village. Wikipedia's illustration for hamlet is this one in Switzerland.