Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various spiny climbing palms of the subfamily Calamoideae and especially the genus Calamus of tropical Africa and Asia, having long, tough, flexible stems.
  • noun The stems of any of these palms, used to make furniture and other wickerwork.
  • noun Wickerwork made of the stems of these palms.
  • noun A switch or cane made from these palms.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See ratten.
  • noun The continuous beat or reverberation of a drum; rataplan; rat-a-tat.
  • See ratan.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) One of the long slender flexible stems of several species of palms of the genus Calamus, mostly East Indian, though some are African and Australian. They are exceedingly tough, and are used for walking sticks, wickerwork, chairs and seats of chairs, cords and cordage, and many other purposes.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of several species of climbing palm of the genus Calamus.
  • noun uncountable The plant used as a material.
  • noun A cane made from this material.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the stem of various climbing palms of the genus Calamus and related genera used to make wickerwork and furniture and canes
  • noun climbing palm of Sri Lanka and southern India remarkable for the great length of the stems which are used for malacca canes
  • noun a switch made from the stems of the rattan palms

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Malay rōtan (perhaps from raut, to pare or trim for use).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Malay rotan.

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