Cane n.
 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.
 Note: ☞ In the Southern United States great cane is the Arundinaria macrosperma, and small cane is. Arundinaria 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 A walking stick; a staff; -- so called because originally made of one of the species of cane.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 Zool., 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.


 Arundinaria tecta
      n : small cane of watery or moist areas in southern United
          States [syn: small cane, switch cane]