assegai, verb transitive

/ˈæsəɡaɪ/
Forms:
Also hasagaye, etc.
Origin:
From assegai.
To wound or kill (someone or something) with an assegai. Often passive.
1804 R. Percival Acct of Cape of G.H. 87General Vandeleur though very well mounted, in making away from a party of them (sc. the Boschman Hottentots) narrowly escaped being hasagayed or killed with their spears.
1837 J.E. Alexander Narr. of Voy. I. 354The Kaffirs, not contented with burning the house, and driving off what they could of his property, had assegaied dogs, pigs and poultry; and the smell was intolerable.
a1858 J. Goldswain Chron. (1949) II. 163They were assegaied, and Charles was shot in the back.
1879 Cape Argus 5 JuneSuddenly the Zulus appeared..and the party jumped on their horses..leaving the Prince, who was assegaied by the Zulus.
1882 Lady F.C. Dixie In Land of Misfortune 373It is my belief that if every Zulu in Zululand were in this tent all assegaing you at once, you would sleep through it all.
1893 ‘Harley’ in Cape Illust. Mag. June 378It’s not all beer and skittles campaigning — even when you are not being assegaied.
1925 F.W. Grenfell in S. Clarke ‘Vanity Fair’ in S. Afr. (1991) 90He was assegaid in seventeen places.
1933 W. Macdonald Romance of Golden Rand 128A Zulu force rushed in and assegaied a large number of the detachment as they came out of the tents.
1949 C. Bullock Rina 48It did not matter to them whether a buck died a painful death impaled on a stake in a camouflaged game-pit, or was caught in a net and assegai’d.
1950 D. Reed Somewhere S. of Suez 269The Zulu lives long and if you give a penny to an ancient sitting on the kerb in Durban today you may place it in the hand that assegai’d that Prince.
c1960 E.M. Jones in J.B. Bullock Peddie — Settlers’ Outpost 38Sergeant-Major Benn’s body was found, assegaied, and brought to Fish River Mouth Camp for burial.
1968 D.R. Edgecombe Letters of Hannah Dennison. 244He earned his living as a merchant. He was assegaied on 13 May 1866.
1971 The 1820 Vol.43 No.10, 14‘Iqawa loku’, he said. ‘He was a very brave man.’ But, of course, he was eventually assagaied.
To wound or kill (someone or something) with an assegai. Often passive.
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assegai, nounn.assegai wood, noun phrasen. phr.
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