Library / English Dictionary

CANE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A stiff switch used to hit students as punishment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("cane" is a kind of...):

switch (a flexible implement used as an instrument of punishment)

Derivation:

cane (beat with a cane)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A stick that people can lean on to help them walk

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("cane" is a kind of...):

walking stick (a stick carried in the hand for support in walking)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cane"):

malacca; malacca cane (a cane made from the stem of a rattan palm)

swagger stick (a short cane or stick covered with leather and carried by army officers)

sword cane; sword stick (a cane concealing a sword or dagger)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A strong slender often flexible stem as of bamboos, reeds, rattans, or sugar cane

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("cane" is a kind of...):

stalk; stem (a slender or elongated structure that supports a plant or fungus or a plant part or plant organ)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cane"):

sugar cane; sugarcane (juicy canes whose sap is a source of molasses and commercial sugar; fresh canes are sometimes chewed for the juice)

rattan; rattan cane (the stem of various climbing palms of the genus Calamus and related genera used to make wickerwork and furniture and canes)

malacca (stem of the rattan palm used for making canes and umbrella handles)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Beat with a cane

Synonyms:

cane; flog; lambast; lambaste

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "cane" is one way to...):

beat; beat up; work over (give a beating to; subject to a beating, either as a punishment or as an act of aggression)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They want to cane the prisoners

Derivation:

cane (a stiff switch used to hit students as punishment)

Credits

 Context examples: 

No wonder we found that poor Yankee's skeleton with the canes growin' between his ribs.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Co-workers may have lollipops and candy canes dancing in their heads, but not you—you will be concentrating on tasks that have to be done. That’s fine!

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

A substance found in some fruits, sugar beets, and sugar cane.

(Glycolic acid, NCI Dictionary)

The positive message from the study is that this scenario may be averted with no significant harm to the increase in the agricultural production set to take place in the cerrado—something near 15 million hectares for soy beans and sugar cane in the next 30 years.

(Species native to Brazil savanna likely to face extinction, Agência Brasil)

I desired he would order several sticks of two feet high, and the thickness of an ordinary cane, to be brought me; whereupon his majesty commanded the master of his woods to give directions accordingly; and the next morning six woodmen arrived with as many carriages, drawn by eight horses to each.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He was a tall, handsome, swarthy fellow, clad in a suit of grey flannel, with a Panama hat, a bristling black beard, and a great, aggressive hooked nose, and flourishing a cane as he walked.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Holmes had brought up a long thin cane, and this he placed upon the bed beside him.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Cane cultivation faces challenges in addition to the need for judicious use of fertilizers.

(Method that cuts sugarcane emissions gets global prize, SciDev.Net)

Many threw themselves down upon the turf and allowed successive waves to pass over their bodies, whilst others, driven wild by the blows, returned them with their hunting-crops and walking-canes.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)