Word.ws English Dictionary

assagai

assagai is the alternative spelling of assegai.

Meaning of assegai

Noun

assegai (plural assegais)

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

See all 3 meanings of assegai

Forms of assagai

Noun
pluralassagais
Verb
third-person singular presentassagais
present participleassagaiing
past participleassagaied
pastassagaied

Questions about assagai

What is assagai the alternative spelling of?
Assagai is the alternative spelling of assegai.

Words near assagai in the dictionary

  1. Assadists
  2. Assaf
  3. assafetida
  4. assafoetida
  5. Assafs
  6. assagai
  7. assagaie
  8. assagaied
  9. assagaies
  10. assagaiing
  11. assagais

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: assagai (page history and authors); assegai (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “assagai.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/assagai. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.