English edit

Etymology edit

Borrowed from Afrikaans. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Noun edit

gwaai

  1. (South Africa, slang) A cigarette.
    • 1997, Barney Simon, Born in the Rsa: Four Workshopped Plays, page 27:
      Husband's under water so she hassles with her laaities, starts lagging with her buddies and lights herself a gwaai.
    • 2012, Jason Wallace, Out of Shadows, page 121:
      For a start, you will remember it whether you want to or not because I guarantee no other Haven teacher has come through the window and fired up a gwaai to start a lesson. They certainly didn't when I was a pupil here.
    • 2013, Hagen Engler, Marrying Black Girls for Guys Who Aren't Black, page 168:
      He'd say that every time a black guy would come up and ask him for a gwaai in isiXhosa. And it was obvious what the guys were asking for. I mean, I could even understand them. But it seemed important to him to not speak Xhosa []