cafila means A caravan of travellers or supplies. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 90 out of 100.
Why “cafila” is a great word
A company of travelers or a train of goods moving together across a desert or arid region, particularly in Arabia or Iran. From Arabic *qāfila*, meaning 'caravan.' Doublet of *coffle*. First known use in English: 1598. Unlike a 'coffle'—a file of shackled slaves or beasts—or a 'convoy'—a protected, often martial escort—a cafila is a voluntary and communal procession, a shared burden of passage. It is the patient silhouette of camels against a bleeding dusk, the creak of laden carts through a mountain pass, the spark of a communal fire in an ocean of sand; a fragile, moving island of human purpose drawn as a persistent thread across the vast and indifferent blankness of the map.
Etymology
From Arabic قَافِلَة (qāfila). Doublet of coffle.
noun
- A caravan of travellers or supplies.“[W]e heard sounds at a distance, which we conjectured to proceed from the bells of a Cafila, passing over the rocks.”