Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
ash sapling . - noun Ireland A walking stick.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word ashplant.
Examples
-
Stephen carries an ashplant cane that becomes an ersatz version of Siegfried's sword: STEPHEN: AH NON, PAR EXEMPLE!
as a wagoner would his mudheeldy wheesindonk Matthew Guerrieri 2007
-
The ashplant brandishing is as much satire as mythmaking, but it points up the deeply Romantic underpinnings of Ulysses.
Archive 2007-06-01 Matthew Guerrieri 2007
-
The ashplant brandishing is as much satire as mythmaking, but it points up the deeply Romantic underpinnings of Ulysses.
as a wagoner would his mudheeldy wheesindonk Matthew Guerrieri 2007
-
Stephen carries an ashplant cane that becomes an ersatz version of Siegfried's sword: STEPHEN: AH NON, PAR EXEMPLE!
Archive 2007-06-01 Matthew Guerrieri 2007
-
He climbed over the sedge and eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a grike.
Ulysses 2003
-
By the bye have you the book, the thing, the ashplant?
Ulysses 2003
-
He began to beat the frayed end of his ashplant against the base of a pillar.
-
Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed.
Ulysses 2003
-
The colonnade above him made him think vaguely of an ancient temple and the ashplant on which he leaned wearily of the curved stick of an augur.
-
He stood on the steps of the library to look at them, leaning wearily on his ashplant.
qroqqa commented on the word ashplant
Well well, three Wordies already listing this as a specifically Joycean word. I just noticed it in Portrait. A stick made of ash, used as either a walking-stick or a cudgel. The oddity is of course 'plant' in this sense.
It turns out however that this is close to the etymological sense of 'plant', which was a sapling, seedling, shoot etc., before being generalized to vegetation of any size or age. The OED says this is now specifically Irish and largely confined to 'ash-plant'.
July 9, 2009