What does kaas mean?
Kaas is the Afrikaans word for cheese, the dairy food made from curdled milk. It is the general everyday term and does not ordinarily identify a particular variety unless additional context does so. In Afrikaans, it is used in much the same way as the English word cheese, including in expressions involving buying, serving, or eating it. The word is also encountered in South Africa through Afrikaans speech, writing, product labels, and the language’s close historical relationship with Dutch. English speakers may encounter it as a foreign or borrowed term rather than as a fully naturalized English noun, so “cheese” is often supplied as a translation when the word appears in an English-language context. Kaas should not be confused with the Afrikaans place-name Kaap, meaning Cape, or with similar-looking names and words in other languages; its established meaning in Afrikaans is simply cheese.
nounIn Afrikaans, cheese; the general word for cheese as a food, without specifying a particular variety.
- Cheese, especially cheese eaten as food.
"Sy het 'n brood met kaas vir ontbyt gereed."
"Die boer se koek is van die beste kaas gemaak."
"The label on the package simply said kaas."
The noun is normally used as an uncountable mass noun; kase is used in countable contexts.
"Die winkel verkoop verskeie kase."
The familiar everyday Afrikaans word for cheese also reveals a direct linguistic link between Afrikaans and Dutch.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of kaas
Afrikaans kaas was borrowed from Dutch kaas, which has the same meaning and ultimately derives from Latin caseus, a word for cheese. English cheese and German Käse are cognates descended through their respective branches of the same Indo-European vocabulary. Afrikaans inherited the established Dutch form while simplifying the language’s broader grammatical history.
How kaas is actually used
This is the ordinary Afrikaans noun for cheese and is normally written in lowercase. In English sentences, it is a borrowed Afrikaans term and is often glossed as “cheese.”