Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A shoot sprouting from a plant base, as in the banana, pineapple, or sugar cane.
- v. To produce or grow as a ratoon.
- v. To propagate (a crop) from ratoons.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A sprout or shoot springing up from the root of a plant after it has been cropped; especially, a new shoot from the root of a sugar-cane that has been cut down. Compare plant-cane.
- n. The heart-leaves in a tobacco-plant.
- To sprout or send up new shoots from the root after being cropped or cut down: said of the sugar-cane and some other plants.
- To induce the growth of young shoots by cutting back (old plants); raise another crop from (the old stools): as, to ratoon sugar-cane.
- In the West Indies, to continue the growth of (plants) after the close of the dry season and after seed has been sown for the new crop: as, to ratoon cotton.
Wiktionary
- n. A shoot sprouting from the root of a cropped plant, especially sugar cane.
- v. intransitive, of a plant To sprout ratoons.
- v. transitive To cut a plant, especially sugar cane, so that it will produce ratoons.
GNU Webster's 1913
Etymologies
- Spanish retoño, sprout, from retoñar, to sprout : re-, again (from Latin; see re-) + otoñar, to grow in autumn (from otoño, autumn, from Latin autumnus; see autumn). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“As the weather wasn't favorable for planting sugar cane seeds, also known as ratoon, in the last two years, it's unlikely that sugar cane output will rise sharply, Mr. Hiremath said.”
The Wall Street Journal: India Sugar Output Likely to Fall Short Again
“In the last two years, the climate wasn't favorable for ratoon, and farmers have sold the seed to molasses manufacturers at high prices this year," Mr. Hiremath of Karvy Comtrade said.”
The Wall Street Journal: India Sugar Output Likely to Fall Short Again
“High prices offered by liquor manufacturers have induced farmers to sell even the ratoon," said a north Indian sugar company official.”
The Wall Street Journal: India Sugar Output Likely to Fall Short Again
“In ratoon cane which is not burned at harvest, the trash must be lined up, usually in alternate interrows.”
“[A ratoon crop is a crop that comes up from the roots after a previous crop was harvested.]”
“In Mauritius, whether in plant or ratoon cane, one row of maize is planted in alternate interrows of cane [i.e. as you walk across the field you encounter cane, cane, maize, cane, cane, ...].”
“The maize would then be intercropped with the ratoon cane.”
“However, maize has less adverse effects on the cane when it is a ratoon cane crop.”
“Consequently, Dr. Govinden suggests leaving the interrow between newly planted cane for other crops such as potato, beans, and groundnuts that are less competitive than maize and which themselves do better with newly planted cane than in ratoon cane.”
“The sweet-stalk pearl millet is used as a fodder that is usually harvested in September, and a subsequent ratoon crop can be taken for grain and straw.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ratoon’.
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Sugar
sugar, sugar cube, sugar of lead, The Sugarcubes, table sugar, sucrose, sugar cane, sugar beet, brown sugar, sugar alcohol, sugar of milk, sugar orchard and 129 more...
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Open List: Rice Is Nice!
Everything rice. There are many styles of sushi listed here. For convention's sake, I list them in lower case letters and without a hyphen (inarizushi rather than Inari-zushi).
Rice v...Carnaroli, ricer, wild rice, risotto, sushi, arborio, basmati, superfino, amylose, beri-beri, Carolina rice, Indo-Chinese rice and 155 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Rats
rats, rat, tree-rat, pilori-rat, prorate, pro rata, Ratso Rizzo, ratfink, rat pack, Rat Pack, Rats!, rat race and 157 more...
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Words good to know
Ill-mannered and coarse and contemptible in behavior or appearance
"was neandertal and insensitive"Neanderthal, throstle, ratoon, caudex, captiously, toroid, limpidity, obturator
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-oons (once of more than one syllable)
Originally this list was to contain multisyllabic words that end in "oon," but as you can see from the comments, all hell broke loose.
doubloon, poltroon, spittoon, patroon, dragoon, bassoon, platoon, typhoon, rangoon, maroon, pontoon, monsoon and 96 more...
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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
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to bee or not to bee
The omission of a sound, letter, or syllable from a word.
gladiolus, abrogate, luxuriance, albumen, asceticism, fracas, foulard, knack, propitiatory, deteriorating, intelligible, interning and 69 more...
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Scripps National Spelling Bee Winners
Since 1925.
gladiolus, cerise, luxuriance, albumen, asceticism, fracas, foulard, knack, torsion, deteriorating, intelligible, interning and 73 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ratoon.
hernesheir I prefered picking pineapples from first or second ratoon plants when I worked in Hawaii in 1975. Sep 29, 2011
reesetee I like it. Let's hope its figurative usage ratoons. Jul 28, 2008
bilby I think we can crank up the figurative use of this.
"My new list ratooned from words I jotted down while waiting for the bus." Jul 21, 2008