agave

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Ἀγαυή (Agauḗ, “Agave”), from ἀγαυός (agauós, “noble, illustrious”).

noun

1. Any plant in the large, variable genus Agave: succulent plants, commonly armed with formidable prickles; they flower at maturity after several years, and generally die thereafter; large species, such as the maguey or century plant, (Agave americana), produce gigantic inflorescences. Several are of economic importance as sources of fibre such as sisal, and alcoholic beverages such as tequila.
   1893 Charles Richards Dodge, A Report on the Leaf Fibers of the United States. Pub: Govt. print. office Washington The work of cutting the leaves, even from these isolated plants, was in the nature of an ordeal. Every member of the party took a knife and attacked the thicket, no one escaping the experience of bleeding hands and arms and of more or less injured clothing. If there is any place where strong language is halfway excusable it is in a thicket of Agave decipiens.
   It was one of the large, vicious varieties of agave, each individual plant an upturned rosette of stiff, fibrous, fleshy leaves, some of them over a meter long on the big parent plants. 1998, Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents, HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP (2019), pages 25–26