cigarette vs cigaret

[cornejo]

Hello.

I have two hypothesis:

1) "cigarette" is a BrE expression while "cigaret" is an AmE expression

2) "cigaret" is an old expression for "cigarette"

What is the difference between the two words?

Thank you.

 

[entangledbank]

'Cigaret' is an old and rare spelling: a hundred years ago, perhaps, but never used anywhere now.

 

[JulianStuart]

'Cigaret' is an old and rare spelling: a hundred years ago, perhaps, but never used anywhere now.

It was much more popular in AE than in BE but is rare everywhere now.

 

[Myridon]

It was much more popular in AE than in BE but is rare everywhere now.

I wouldn't say it was "popular" even then.
Compare cigarette to cigaret

 

[ewie]

I can only remember ever coming across it in a short story by Raymond Carver: Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarets (1971ish). I imagine he was making some point about one of the characters by spelling it that way ~ it's a very long time since I read it.

 

[JulianStuart]

I wouldn't say it was "popular" even then.
Compare cigarette to cigaret

Agreed. There were a few things like that, where there was a group of AE speakers perferred the -et ending ove the -ette ending, that I noticed when I moved from BE-landia to AE-landia. It doesn't look as though they were ever a very large group

(Omelet and pipet are the only ones that come to mind now)

 

[jmichaelm]

I wouldn't say it was "popular" even then.
Compare cigarette to cigaret

The oldest of these from 1911 appears to be a business style book where the owner corrected it from "cigaret" to "cigarette"