cigarette, paper wrapped roll of finely cut tobacco for smoking modern cigarette tobacco is usually of a milder type than cigar tobacco.

The Aztecs smoked a hollow reed or cane tube stuffed with tobacco. Other natives of Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America crushed tobacco leaves and rolled the shreds in corn (maize) husk or other vegetable wrappers. But it was the cigar rather than this prototype of the cigarette that the conquistadors brought back to Spain as a luxury for the wealthy.

Early in the 16th century beggars in Sevilla (Seville) began to pick up discarded cigar butts, shred them, and roll them in scraps of paper (Spanish papeletes) for smoking, thus improvising the first cigarettes. These poor man s smokes were known as cigarrillos (Spanish little cigars ). Late in the 18th century they acquired respectability and their use spread to Italy and Portugal they were carried … (150 of 460 words)