The English cigar comes from the Spanish cigarro, which in turn derives from the Mayan advice for tobacco, siyar; see the entry for cigarro at the Spanish August Academy's virtual library dictionary.

Since apart from satisfied forms of heavily cured and strong snuff, the cigar is the most potent articulation of self-dosing with tobacco, it has-been long had associations of being a male rite of passage, as it may have had during the pre-Columbian era in America. Its fumes and rituals have in American and European cultures established a "men's Click Here hut"; in the 19th century, men would retire to the "smoking room" after dinner, to discuss serious issues.