Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Cane

Cane (kān), n. [OE. cane, canne, OF. cane, F. canne, L. canna, fr. Gr. κάννα, κάννη; prob. of Semitic origin; cf. Heb. qāneh reed. Cf. Canister, canon, 1st Cannon.]

1. (Bot.) (a) A name given to several peculiar palms, species of Calamus and Dæmanorops, having very long, smooth flexible stems, commonly called rattans. (b) Any plant with long, hard, elastic stems, as reeds and bamboos of many kinds; also, the sugar cane. (c) Stems of other plants are sometimes called canes; as, the canes of a raspberry.

Like light canes, that first rise big and brave. B. Jonson.

☞ In the Southern United States great cane is the Arundinaria macrosperma, and small cane is. A. tecta.

2. A walking stick; a staff; — so called because originally made of one of the species of cane.

Stir the fire with your master's cane. Swift.

3. A lance or dart made of cane. [R.]

Judgelike thou sitt'st, to praise or to arraign The flying skirmish of the darted cane. Dryden.

4. A local European measure of length. See Canna.

Cane borer (Zoö.), A beetle (Oberea bimaculata) which, in the larval state, bores into pith and destroy the canes or stalks of the raspberry, blackberry, etc. — Cane mill, a mill for grinding sugar canes, for the manufacture of sugar. — Cane trash, the crushed stalks and other refuse of sugar cane, used for fuel, etc.

Cane (kān), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Caned (kānd); p. pr. & vb. n. Caning.] 1. To beat with a cane. Macaulay.

2. To make or furnish with cane or rattan; as, to cane chairs.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.