Forms: 8 seegar, cegar, seguar (sagar), 8–9 segar, 9 cigarre, cigar. [ad. Sp. cigarro: in F. cigare.
The Spanish word appears not to be from any lang. of W. Indies. Its close formal affinity to Sp. cigarra ‘cicada,’ naturally suggests its formation from that word, esp. as derivatives often differ merely in gender. Barcia, Great Etymol. Spanish Dict., says ‘el cigarro figura una cigarra de papel’ (the cigar has the form of a cicada of paper). Mahn also thinks that the roll of tobacco leaf was compared to the body of the insect, which is cylindrical with a conical apex. The name cigarral applied to a kind of pleasure-garden and summer-house (as in the cigarrales of Toledo), which has sometimes been pressed into service in discussing the etymology, is said by Barcia, after P. Guadio, to be related neither to cigarra nor cigarro, but to be of Arabic origin meaning ‘little house’ (casa pequeña). It is said however to be applied in Cuba to a tobacco garden or nursery.]
1. A compact roll of tobacco-leaves for smoking, one end being taken in the mouth while the other is lit.
1735. J. Cockburn, Journ. over Land, 139. These Gentlemen [3 Friars at Nicaragua] gave us some Seegars to smoke…. These are Leaves of Tobacco rolled up in such Manner that they serve both for a Pipe and Tobacco itself … they know no other way [of smoking] here, for there is no such Thing as a Tobacco-Pipe throughout New Spain, [etc.].
1777. W. Dalrymple, Trav. Sp. & Port., xvii. The Marquis took out of his pocket a little bit of tobacco, rolled it up in a piece of paper, making a cigar of it.
1778. Pennant, Journ. Snowdon, 28. Pipes were not then invented, so they used the twisted leaves, or segars.
a. 1787. Colman, Man of Business, IV. Many a Sagar have little Goldy and I smoaked together.
1823. Byron, Island, II. xix. Give me a cigar.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple, xvii. A paper segar.
1869. Ruskin, Q. of Air, 91, note. It is not easy to estimate the demoralizing effect on the youth of Europe of the cigar.
2. Comb., as cigar-box, -case, -cutter, -end, -holder, -lighter, -maker, -shop, -smoke, -smoker, -stump, -tip, -tube, etc.; cigar-loving, -shaped, etc., adjs.; cigar-bundler, a machine for binding cigars in bundles; cigar-press, a machine for compressing cigars horizontally and vertically; cigar-ship, -steamer, a ship made in the shape of a cigar.
a. 1863. Thackeray, Fitz-Boodle Papers (1887), 16. I …. can at any rate take my *cigar-case out after dinner at Blackwall.
1870. Ruskin, Aratra Pentel., 84 (Hoppe). Orange-peel, foul straw, rags, and *cigar-ends.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 14 Aug., 13/2. Cigar-end gathering, which is practised more or less in every large town, is an industry. The man who picks up thrown away cigar ends does not do so to smoke but to sell them.
1871. Chamb. Jrnl., Jan., 52/1 (Hoppe). Very dirty hands, filthy paste, and the occasional use of the saliva, make one resolve for the future to use a *cigar-holder.
1887. W. S. Hughes, in Scribn. Mag., I. 427/2. This torpedo … is fusiform, or *cigar-shaped.
1869. Daily News, 12 June, 5/7. The *cigar-ship, strangest of all naval productions, ploughing the waves with those extraordinary screw-propellers of hers.
1836–9. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Streets, iii. The window of a west-end *cigar-shop.
1887. M. Roberts, Western Avernus, 160. Discarded chews and old *cigar stumps.
Hence (nonce-wds.) Cigared a., furnished with a cigar; Cigarer, a cigar-smoker; Cigarified a.
1830. Lytton, P. Clifford, vi. Prowling in Regent Street towards evening, whiskered and cigared.
1826. Blackw. Mag., XX. 155. Particular pipemen, and solitary cigarers, no doubt, always existed.
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, xxx. A stupid little cigarrified Count of dragoons.
