sagoweer en · NOUN
Etymology
From Dutch sagoweer, from Portuguese sagueiro, ultimately from Malay sagu (“sago”); compare Makasar sagéru, Buginese sagéru, Malay saguer, Malay sageru. Doublet of sagwire.
Meanings
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(obsolete, uncountable) Synonym of sagueir (palm wine made from Arenga pinnata).
In Amboyna a man can keep himself and his family on next to no work at all; may dress decently, in the universal sarong and coat that both sexes wear; may eat of the best, drink sweet, intoxicating sagoweer or palm wine to his fullest desire (since he is Christian, not Mohammedan), may loaf, dance, and gossip half the day, eat a quarter of the day, and work perhaps an eighth.
1914 March 7, The Sydney Morning Herald, page 5, column 5:They drink a fermented beverage called sagoweer, but drunkenness is rare.
1950 January 4, The Age, Melbourne, page 2, column 5:More sagoweer, or palm wine, is drank at this time than at any other, the cocoanut trees being put to no other use than to supply the ingredients.
1840, D.H. Kolff, translated by George Windsor, Voyages of the Dutch brig of war Dourga, through the southern and little-known parts of the Moluccan Archipelago, and along the previously unknown southern coast of New Guinea, performed during the years 1825 and 1826, London: James Madden and Co., page 242: