Malacca cane

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English

An 18th-century Malacca cane
The knob of a 19th-century Masonic Malacca cane

Alternative forms

Etymology

From the former importance of Malacca as a port for the rattan trade and cane in its senses both as a reed-like plant and as a walking stick.

Noun

Malacca cane (countable and uncountable, plural Malacca canes)

  1. (uncountable) Calamus scipionum, a species of thick rattan climbing palm native to Southeast Asia; its material; (inexact) closely similar species and their material.
    • 1897, Outing, number 30, page 483:
      The mallets or sticks [sc. used in polo] are generally of malacca cane.
    • 1965, Charles Shuttleworth, Malayan Safari, page 88:
      Malacca cane grows in clumps in the jungle.
  2. (countable, fashion) A walking stick made of C. scipionum or similar material with a rich but mottled brown color.
    • 1856, Berthold Carl Seemann, A Popular History of the Palms and Their Allies, page 131:
      The well-known ‘Malacca Canes’... do not occur about Malacca itself, but are imported from Siak, on the opposite coast of Sumatra.
    • 1874, Edward H. Knight, The Practical Dictionary of Mechanics, volume I, page 443:
      Malacca canes have frequently to be colored in parts.
    • 1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, →OCLC, section I, page 5:
      Adrian checked the orchid at his buttonhole, inspected the spats at his feet, gave the lavender gloves a twitch, smoothed down his waistcoat, tucked the ebony Malacca-cane under his arm, swallowed twice and pushed wide the changing-room door.

References

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