assegai

plural assegais · alternative obsolete assagai · alternative obsolete assagaie · alternative obsolete assagay · alternative obsolete assegaai · alternative obsolete assegay · alternative obsolete azagaia · alternative obsolete hassagay · alternative obsolete hassaguay · alternative obsolete zagaie · alternative obsolete zagaye

1. A slim hardwood spear or javelin with an iron tip, especially those used by Bantu peoples of Southern Africa.

   Native mats covered the clay walls; a collection of spears, assegais, shields, knives was hung up in trophies.

   1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 213

   4 more examples

   But now the Moormen, stalking o'er the strand / to guard the wat'ery stores the strangers need; / this, targe on arm and assegai in hand, / that, with his bended bow, and venom'd reed[.]

   1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume I, page 33

   My client welcomed the judge […] and they disappeared together into the Ethiopian card-room, which was filled with the assegais and exclamation point shields Mr. Cooke had had made at the sawmill at Beaverton.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

   A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.

   1922, James Joyce, Ulysses

   Without a word, he took my foreskin, pulled it forward, and then, in a single motion, brought down his assegai.

   1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 32

2. The tree species Curtisia dentata, the wood of which is traditionally used to make assegais.

   In the clearing, built around the base of an assegai tree, stood a hut, plastered in cow dung.

   2019, Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Hamish Hamilton, page 236

present singular third person assegais · participle present assegaiing · participle past assegaied · past assegaied · alternative obsolete assagai · alternative obsolete assagaie · alternative obsolete assagay · alternative obsolete assegaai · alternative obsolete assegay · alternative obsolete azagaia · alternative obsolete hassagay · alternative obsolete hassaguay · alternative obsolete zagaie · alternative obsolete zagaye

1. To spear with an assegai.