assagai

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as·sa·gai

(ăs′ə-gī′)

Variant of assegai.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

assagai

(ˈæsəˌɡaɪ)

n, pl -gais

1. (Arms & Armour (excluding Firearms)) a variant spelling of assegai

2. (Plants) a variant spelling of assegai

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

as•se•gai

or as•sa•gai

(ˈæs əˌgaɪ)

n., pl. -gais.

1. an iron-tipped spear used by Bantu peoples of S Africa.

2. a S African tree, Curtisia dentata, of the dogwood family, from whose wood such weapons were made.

[1615–25; earlier azagaia < Portuguese < Arabic az zaghāyah]

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Noun

assagai - the slender spear of the Bantu-speaking people of Africa

assegai

lance, spear, shaft - a long pointed rod used as a tool or weapon

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Barrow did indeed applaud the life and civilization of the Xhosa societies he met beyond the Assagai River, and he praised them at the expense of the subjugated natives of the Colony, and in a language that responds (no doubt deliberately) to the abolitionist scheme, for he speaks of the two lots of people being as far apart 'as the equator is from the pole', (49) but the garden-like hinterland (beyond the fynbos) is Wilberforce's addition and a relic of earlier projections.