Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Either of two South American palm trees, Attalea funifera or Leopoldinia piassaba, from which a strong coarse fiber is obtained.
  • noun The fiber of either of these plants, formerly widely used for making ropes, brushes, and brooms.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A coarse fiber yielded by two palms, Attalea funifera and Leopoldinia Piassaba.
  • noun Either of the above palms.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A fibrous product of two Brazilian palm trees (Attalea funifera and Leopoldinia Piassaba), -- used in making brooms, and for other purposes. Called also piaçaba and piasaba.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A fibrous product of two Brazilian palm trees (Attalea funifera and Leopoldinia piassaba), formerly used in making brooms and for other purposes.
  • noun Either of these two trees.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Portuguese, from Tupí pïa’sawa.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Portuguese piasaba.

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Examples

  • "Towing by pulling on a piassava rope is hard work for someone whose hands are not callused, and as Getulio will be too busy on shore to stay in the boat and help with the hauling ... somehow, I think your partners will remember this trip."

    River Of Desire Taylor, Abra 1982

  • Scarcely taking his eyes off Toni, he attended to securing the piassava rope to its mooring.

    River Of Desire Taylor, Abra 1982

  • Hammocks could not be slung in tents as small as hers, so a thin lumpy mattress and a pillow of piassava fiber had been dragged into place - both, Fern-o informed her, the property of Luis Quental himself.

    River Of Desire Taylor, Abra 1982

  • The exports also include hides, mangabeira rubber, piassava fibre, diamonds, cabinet woods and rum.

    Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" Various

  • The tree also produces piassava, another major commodity of the 1850's Atlantic trade, which still has export value today, and could also support the twine and foot mart industries.

    Vanguard News 2009

  • No country in the world is as rich as Brazil in its natural growth of rubber trees; nor have I ever seen anywhere else such beautiful and plentiful palms: the piassava (_Attalia fumifera_ M.), the assahy (_Euterpe oleracea_ L.), the burity (_Mauritia vinifera_ M.), the carnahuberia (_Copernicia cerifera_ M.), the palmito (_Euterpe edulis_ M.), and many others.

    Across Unknown South America Arnold Henry Savage Landor 1894

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