Word.ws English Dictionary

sagwire

sagwire noun: synonym of sagueir (palm wine made from Arenga pinnata).

Noun

sagwire (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) Synonym of sagueir (palm wine made from Arenga pinnata).
    • One of theſe leaves, or rather branches, is cut off, and the ſagwire trickles out of it by drops, which are caught in a bamboo, hung under it for that purpoſe, and when this is full, the contents are drawn off, by a tap at the bottom.1798, Samuel Hull Wilcocke, transl., Voyages to the East-Indies; by the Late John Splinter Stavorinus, volume II, London: G.G. and J. Robinson, page 262
    • Their food is rice, fish, and pisang, and their drink water; though they likewise have sagwire, or palm wine.1815, Walter Hamilton, The East India Gazetteer, London: John Murray, page 260, column 2
    Synonyms:
    sagueir
  2. (obsolete) The palm tree Arenga pinnata.
    • One of the most useful and abundant of all the palms is the Sagwire or Gomuti (Borassus gomutus).1820, John Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archipelago, volume I, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, page 397

Examples of sagwire in a sentence

  • On the fruit of this tree the natives in a great measure live, and regale themselves with its inebriating juice, as also on sagwire, a very strong species of palm wine.1824, Samuel Morewood, An Essay on the Inventions and Customs of both Ancients and Moderns in the use of Inebriating Liquors, London...
  • The Papuans of New Guinea in their intoxicating sagwire, prepared from the sap of the palm, illustrate the transition to a fluid medium for the same purpose.1931, Julius Lippert, translated by George Peter Murdock, The Evolution of Culture, London: George Allen and Unwin, page 194:

Synonyms of sagwire

Origin of sagwire

From Portuguese sagueiro, ultimately from Malay sagu (“sago”); compare Makasar sagéru, Buginese sagéru, Malay saguer, Malay sageru. Doublet of sagoweer.

Questions about sagwire

What does sagwire mean?
Sagwire means synonym of sagueir (palm wine made from Arenga pinnata).
How do you use sagwire in a sentence?
On the fruit of this tree the natives in a great measure live, and regale themselves with its inebriating juice, as also on sagwire, a very strong species of palm wine.
What part of speech is sagwire?
Sagwire is a noun.

Words near sagwire in the dictionary

  1. Sagunto
  2. sagupilone
  3. sagvandite
  4. sagvandites
  5. sagwan
  6. sagwire
  7. sagy
  8. Sagñay
  9. SAG–U
  10. sah
  11. SAHA

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sagwire (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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