Definitions

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

  • noun A slender, strong but often flexible stem, as of certain bamboos, reeds, or rattans.
  • noun A plant having such a stem.
  • noun Such stems or strips of such stems used for wickerwork or baskets.
  • noun A bamboo (Arundinaria gigantea) native to the southeast United States, having long stiff stems and often forming canebrakes.
  • noun The stem of a raspberry, blackberry, certain roses, or similar plants.
  • noun Sugar cane.
  • noun A stick used as an aid in walking or carried as an accessory.
  • noun A rod used for flogging.
  • noun A glass cylinder made of smaller, variously colored glass rods that have been fused together, used in glassmaking.
  • transitive verb To make, supply, or repair with flexible woody material.
  • transitive verb To hit or beat with a rod.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To beat or flog with a cane or walking-stick.
  • To furnish or complete with cane; fill the center of the back or the seat with interwoven strips of cane: as, to cane chairs.
  • noun In Scotland, rent paid in kind, as in poultry, eggs, etc.; hence, any tax, tribute, or duty exacted.
  • noun An obsolete form of khan.
  • noun An obsolete form of can.
  • noun A slender stick or rod of some substance such as sealing-wax, sulphur, glass, or tobacco.
  • noun A slender panic-grass, Panicum dichotomum, a valuable native forage for sheep in the southern United States.
  • noun A rather long and slender jointed woody stem, more or less rigid, hollow or pithy, as that of some palms, grasses, and other plants, such as the ratan, bamboo, and sugar-cane; also, the stem of raspberries or blackberries.
  • noun Sugar-cane: as, a plantation of cane; cane-sugar.
  • noun The plant Arundinaria macrosperma of the southern United States, forming cane-brakes. See Arundinaria.
  • noun The stem of a plant, as the bamboo, used as a walking-stick; hence, any walking-stick.
  • noun A lance or dart made of cane.
  • noun A chair having the seat, or the seat and back, made of thin strips of cane, retaining their natural smooth surface, interlaced or woven together.

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

  • transitive verb To beat with a cane.
  • transitive verb To make or furnish with cane or rattan.
  • noun A name given to several peculiar palms, species of Calamus and Dæmanorops, having very long, smooth flexible stems, commonly called rattans.
  • noun Any plant with long, hard, elastic stems, as reeds and bamboos of many kinds; also, the sugar cane.
  • noun Stems of other plants are sometimes called canes.
  • noun A walking stick; a staff; -- so called because originally made of one of the species of cane.
  • noun rare A lance or dart made of cane.
  • noun A local European measure of length. See Canna.
  • noun (Zoö.) A beetle (Oberea bimaculata) which, in the larval state, bores into pith and destroy the canes or stalks of the raspberry, blackberry, etc.
  • noun a mill for grinding sugar canes, for the manufacture of sugar.
  • noun the crushed stalks and other refuse of sugar cane, used for fuel, etc.

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

  • noun uncountable The slender, flexible main stem of a plant such as bamboo, including many species in the Grass family Gramineae.
  • noun uncountable The plant itself, including many species in the Grass family Gramineae; a reed.
  • noun uncountable sugar cane. (US, Southern) Sometimes applied to maize or rarely to sorghum when such plants are processed to make molasses (treacle) or sugar.
  • noun countable A short rod or stick, traditionally of wood or bamboo, used for corporal punishment.
  • noun countable, glassblowing A length of colored and/or patterned glass rod, used in the specific glassblowing technique called caneworking.
  • noun uncountable Corporal punishment by beating with a cane; the cane.
  • noun countable A strong short staff used for support or decoration during walking; a walking stick.
  • noun countable A long rod often collapsible and commonly white (for visibility to other persons), used by blind persons for guidance in determining their course and for probing for obstacles in their path.
  • verb To strike or beat with a cane or similar implement.
  • verb UK, New Zealand, slang To destroy.
  • verb UK, New Zealand, slang To do something well, in a competent fashion.
  • verb UK It hurts.
  • verb transitive To make or furnish with cane or rattan.

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin canna, small reed, from Greek kanna, of Semitic origin; see qnw in Semitic roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French cane ("sugar cane"), from Latin canna ("reed"), from Ancient Greek κάννα (kánna), from Aramaic qanhā, qanyā, from Akkadian qanu 'tube, reed', from Sumerian gin 'reed'.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word cane.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Citation at budwood.

    September 7, 2008