English

A guard with assegai in South Africa, 1943.

Alternative forms

• assagai; assagaie, assagay, assegay, azagaia, hassagay, hassaguay, zagaie, zagaye (obsolete)

Noun

assegai ‎(plural assegais)

1. A slim hardwood spear or javelin with an iron tip, especially those used by Bantu peoples of Southern Africa.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 8, in The Celebrity:

     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.

   • 1902, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Tank Form 2007, p.99:

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

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:

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

   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus 2010, p. 32:

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

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

Translations

Verb

assegai ‎(third-person singular simple present assegais, present participle assegaiing, simple past and past participle assegaied)

1. To spear with an assegai.

See also

• assegai on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Curtisia on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Curtisia on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• assegai on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• Curtisia on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons