cigarette
or cig·a·ret
[sig-uh-ret, sig-uh-ret]
- a cylindrical roll of finely cut tobacco cured for smoking, considerably smaller than most cigars and usually wrapped in thin white paper.
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Origin of cigarette
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for cigarette
Contemporary Examples
He observes the bodies floating away on the river, pulling on his cigarette with a sneer.
Houellebecq’s Incendiary Novel Imagines France With a Muslim PresidentPierre Assouline
January 9, 2015
She retrieved a cigarette from her purse and lit it without moving her face away from the screen.
I Watched a Casino Kill Itself: The Awful Last Nights of Atlantic City’s Taj MahalOlivia Nuzzi
December 8, 2014
They say the currency devalues a few points just in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette.
“The truth is, we feel threatened,” her husband adds between drags on a cigarette.
Baby cigarette “No worry of cancer with this cigarette costume,” the description for this gem reads.
Historical Examples
She did not glance at him, but held her cigarette in silence and refused to light it.
MalboneThomas Wentworth Higginson
He broke away from her with a gay laugh, and lit a cigarette.
VivietteWilliam J. Locke
Max, cigarette in hand, was coming across, under the ailanthus tree.
KMary Roberts Rinehart
But he smoked incessantly, lighting one cigarette from another.
KMary Roberts Rinehart
Chip took the cigarette from his lips and emptied his lungs of smoke.
Chip, of the Flying UB. M. Bower
cigarette
sometimes US cigaret
- a short tightly rolled cylinder of tobacco, wrapped in thin paper and often having a filter tip, for smokingShortened forms: cig, ciggy
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Word Origin
C19: from French, literally: a little cigar
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for cigarette
n.
1835, American English, from French cigarette (by 1824), diminutive of cigare "cigar" (18c.), from Spanish cigarro (see cigar). Spanish form cigarito, cigarita also was popular in English mid-19c. Cigarette heart "heart disease caused by smoking" is attested from 1884. Cigarette lighter attested from 1884.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper