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Rattan   /rætˈæn/   Listen
Rattan

noun
(Written also ratan)
1.
Climbing palm of Sri Lanka and southern India remarkable for the great length of the stems which are used for malacca canes.  Synonyms: Calamus rotang, rattan palm.
2.
The stem of various climbing palms of the genus Calamus and related genera used to make wickerwork and furniture and canes.  Synonym: rattan cane.
3.
A switch made from the stems of the rattan palms.  Synonym: ratan.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Rattan" Quotes from Famous Books



... L—, and he hailed from Richmond, we believe, and built some consequence upon the fact that he was a son of the Old Dominion. He dressed in the extreme of fashion; spent a good deal of time strutting up and down Market street, switching his rattan; boarded at one of the hotels; drank wines freely, and pretended to be quite a judge of their quality; swore round oaths occasionally, and talked of his ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... the peace of God while it lasts." He stretched himself on his back on the rattan lounge, and folded his hands on that part of his person which illustrated, geographically speaking, the great Continental Divide. The locked hands rose softly up and down. His wife ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... from a distance. Up into the highest branches and down again, and up again into the lower branches, and rolling along the ground in curves as that of a Boa bedecked with huge ferns and prickly spikes, six feet and more long each, the Rattan {83b} hangs in mid-air, one hardly sees how, beautiful and wonderful, beyond what clumsy words can tell. Beneath the great trees (for here great trees grow freely beneath greater trees, and beneath ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... feast. It is painfully significant to find that the only field in which New Guinea natives have shown much skill and ingenuity is in the manufacture of weapons. One of these is known as a Man-catcher, and was invented by the natives of Hood Bay, but all over the vast island this loop of rattan cane is the constant companion of head-hunters. The peculiarity of the weapon is the deadly ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers

... of all cactuses," he continued, producing a flower-pot which appeared to contain a piece of mildewed rattan; "it comes from Australia. You are very young, sir, to ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... grow, are laced into one another, so as to form a vault impenetrable to the rays of the sun. Under this vault, and among those fine trees, prolific nature has given birth to a crowd of climbing plants of a most remarkable description. The rattan and the flexible liana mount up to the topmost branches, and re-descending to the earth, take fresh root, receive new sustenance, and then remount anew, and at various distances they join themselves to the friendly trunks of their supporting columns, and ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... directorship of a lean, shrunken, withered old grey-haired hag of superlative ugliness, who did no work herself, but went constantly back and forth along the line of workers, bearing in her hand a long thin pliant rattan, which she did not hesitate to smartly apply to the shoulders of those who seemed to her to be doing less than their fair share of the work in hand. This bit of petty cruelty was, however, as a matter of course, promptly stopped ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... steerage, heard all), and swab, and lubber, whereby the lieutenant returned the salute, and they jawed together fore and aft a good spell, till at last the captain turned out, and, laying hold of a rattan, came athwart Mr. Bowling's quarter: whereby he told the captain that, if he was not his commander, he would heave him overboard, and demanded satisfaction ashore; whereby in the morning watch, the captain went ashore in the pinnace, and afterwards the ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... and Rowland Hill "Let the Lower Lights be Burning" Liberty Liberty Now and Forever Little Folks Little Jimmy Little Moody Love Love, not the Rattan, Conquers Little Moody Love's ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody

... accordingly. Our appearance in the long empty room at that early hour caused visible consternation amongst the China boys. But Hollis led the way to one of the tables between the windows screened by rattan blinds. A brilliant half-light trembled on the ceiling, on the whitewashed walls, bathed the multitude of vacant chairs and tables in a peculiar, ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... is used extensively in some country homes. It is made of the French willow, and is not so cheap but is stronger than rattan. Best rockers in this material sell at about $20. They are hardly to be considered in the permanent furnishings of the home, though there is no denying their cleanliness, coolness, and ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... the window curtains should follow it up in lighter tones or contrast with it. The curtains may correspond with the coverings of the chairs, sofa, mantel and table draperies in color and fabric. If the furniture is of wicker, bamboo or rattan, the curtains should be of Japanese or any kind of Oriental goods. Curtains of muslin (either white or tinted), gay-colored chintzes, lace or dotted Swiss muslin, looped back with bright-toned ribbons, look very pretty and are appropriate ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... of four Samuel was sent to an infant school kept by an old lady, who being lame, was unable to leave her chair, but carried her authority to the remotest parts of her dominion by the help of a long rattan. Samuel, like the rest, had felt the sudden apparition of this monitor. Having scratched a portrait of the dame upon a chest of drawers with the point of a pin, he was called out and summarily punished. Years ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... clock on the mantelpiece ticked noisily, and the late afternoon sun that streamed in through the windows lighted into scarlet the crimson wall-paper and threw into prominence the posters tacked upon it. It was a cozy room with its deep rattan chairs and pillow-strewn couch. Snow-shoes, fencing foils, boxing-gloves, and tennis racquets littered the corners, and on every side a general air of boyish ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... house ran a hospitable veranda, with rugs and rattan furniture that made of it one large outside room. Tables, on which rested books and magazines, with here and there a vase of flowers fresh cut from the garden, showed that the inmates of the house were people ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... three small packages. Grandmother wore a gray, changeable silk. The round waist fitted her plump figure smoothly, and the skirt was full and flowing. Her bonnet was made of the same silk shirred on rattan, and was not perched on the top of her head, but covered it well and framed her sweet face with a full, white tulle ruching ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... Bantam. Caddy. Cassowary. Cockatoo. Dugong. Gamboge. Gong. Gutta-percha. Mandarin. Mango. Orang-outang. Rattan. ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... school of boys of all ages, kept by a man named Eastburn, in Library Street, whom I can only recall as a coarse, brutal fiend. From morning to night there was not a minute in which some boy was not screaming under the heavy rattan which he or his brother always held. I myself—infant as I was—for not learning a spelling-lesson properly, was subjected to a caning which would have been cruel if inflicted on a convict or sailor. In the lower story this man's sister kept a girls' school, and the ruffian ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... upon a woman with a crowd round her; she was staring up at a white cloud, and swore that she could plainly see an angel with a white sword, and some of the others cried that they saw it too. I should like to have been a gunner's mate with a stout rattan, and to have laid it over their shoulders, to give them something else to think about for a few hours. It is downright pitiful to see such cowards. At the corner of one street there was a quack, vending pills and perfumes that he warranted to keep away the Plague, and ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... chair, with my rattan in my hand. "Begone, you old thief," cried I; and hardly were the words out of my mouth, before Mr Emmanuel travelled out of the room, and I never saw him afterwards. I was pleased with myself for having done this act of honesty, and for the first time for a long while, I ate my dinner with ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... obliged to dance, had great ulcers on his legs from the wounds caused by the cords with which he had been bound when he was tortured with water, and was at first unable to raise his feet from the floor; but Villa threatened him with a rattan until he finally did so. This caused the sores on his legs to burst open ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... bushes for a hundred yards, heedless of the clinging thorns of the rattan vine that tore his clothes, and scratched his face and hands until they bled, before reaching the scene of what sounded like a terrible struggle. The screams for help told him that at least one of the contestants was a human being in sore distress, and in thus rushing to his ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe

... place in that neighborhood called the "Old Dock." The man looked at me wonderingly at first, and then seeing I was apparently sane, and quite civil into the bargain, he whipped his well-polished boot with his rattan, pulled up his silver-laced coat-collar, and initiated me into a ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... cobbles in a great hurry, flailing the air, as he went, with a short rattan, for he affected some of the foppish customs the old officers brought back from the Continent. He was for passing us with no more than a jerk of the head, but M'Iver and I between us took up the mouth of the lane, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... by a responsible firm and are guaranteed by the Home Rattan Co. Very best of material used throughout in ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous

... phenomena, innocent at that. Mr. Gwynn did not sit down, but stood in the middle of the room. On the careless other hand, Richard did not arise from the chair into which he had flung himself, but sat with his hat on, puffing blue wreaths and tapping his foot with a rattan. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... fringed and tasseled with blue: a large ring hung from either ear; a pair of bracelets adorned her wrists; rings with bezels of priceless gems were on her fingers; and she hent in hand a long rod of rattan cane which she thrust into the frying pan, saying, "O fish! O fish! be ye constant to your covenant?" When the cookmaiden saw this apparition she swooned away. The young lady repeated her words a second time and a third ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... without fructification, by Sir Joseph Banks, during the celebrated voyage of Captain Cook) has at length been detected bearing fruit in the vicinity of Endeavour River. The existence of this palm, or rattan, on the East Coast, to which it is confined, seems almost to be limited to an area within the parallels of 15 and 17 degrees South; should, however, its range be more extensive, it is southerly one ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... dearest blessing here below! I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her when returning in the evening from our labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an AEolian harp; and particularly, why my pulse beat such a furious rattan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Thus with me began love and poetry, which at times have been my only, and till within the last twelve months, have been ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... houses have a noble appearance, and are built after the form of those in Calcutta. The inhabitants are principally Malays; of them I shall speak more hereafter. After having received on board a quantity of rattan, as private trade for the captain, we made sail and arrived at Macao, on January 26th, 1821, after a long and ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp

... raised the rattan he still carried, and caused a page of painted metal to turn on hinges that were so artfully concealed as not to be visible. A new surface, with another ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... too pretty for a mere dinner card." Lila dropped into a rattan chair and idly tossed the corks from hand to hand. "Aren't you planning a long time ahead? Your family knows exactly what to send in a box. That last was the most delicious thing! I suppose we'll just ask our crowd of freshmen, Berta ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... nice—yet! He'll be a lot nicer before he's ten years older. I think his education has been neglected. You and I must begin to keep school around this township. There's nothing so nice as education, especially when the school-teacher has a nice long rattan ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... the water. Another layer was placed crossways on this; and so on, till the raft was of sufficient thickness to bear the party. No binding was required, as the reeds were thus sufficiently united for the purpose. With some long poles and some rattan vines cut from the forest, three hunters embarked. Throwing their ropes round the head of the first animal they got up to, they soon towed it ashore, where their companions secured it, while they shoved off for the other. ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... not soon to be forgotten. There were felt and straw hats of every possible grade and every shade and color except red, wound with a rich band about the crown and another around the brim. Those of straw were of every imaginable weave, some of rattan, like baskets or veranda furniture. The Mexican male seems to be able to endure sameness of costume below it, but unless his hat is individual, life is a drab blank to him. With his hat off the peon loses seven eights of his impressiveness. ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... the Major cried, "Never tie up my rattan again. Oh, it was Mrs. Hockin, was it? What a fool I was not to stop on my ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... fact of a man asking for her gave him a species of right over her; that there was no such thing possible as answering, No. She sat looking at Coronado with a helpless, timorous air, very much as a child looks at his father, when the father, switching his rattan, says, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... curst carmagnole, auld Satan, Watches, like baudrons by a rattan, Our sinfu' saul to get a claut on Wi' felon ire; Syne, whip! his tail ye'll ne'er cast saut on— He's ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... cook, and nurse her little bound-footed child, who was strapped to my back to carry. The child I carried was 9 years old; and I was 11. My mistress was very cruel. Often she took off all my clothes, laid me on a bench and beat me with a rattan until I was black all over. Then she said: 'I will get rid of you and sell you.' The keeper of a brothel came to buy me, and look me over to see how much I was worth. A Chinaman living next door, knowing how I was treated and that ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... on the Atlantic Avenue platform of the Lexington Avenue subway. It is 9 A.M., and a crowded train is pulling out. Just before the train leaves a young man steps off one of the cars, leaving behind him (though not at once noticed) a rattan suitcase. This young man disappears in the usual fashion, viz., by mingling with the crowd. When the train gets to the end of the run the unclaimed suitcase is opened, and found ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... before known as Australian, which was found here in abundance in the gloomy brushes, parasitic upon the roots of the tallest trees. We also met with here—in probably its southern limit upon the coast—a species of rattan (Calamus australis) with long prickly shoots, well illustrated in the annexed drawing by Mr. Huxley, representing the process of cutting through the scrub, during an excursion made with Mr. Kennedy, for the purpose of searching ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... arrival the Mouse-deer said: "Wait here a bit, while I go and get the simples." And going a-land he hunted up a rattan creeper and took it back with him and said: "Now I'll give you the simples I spoke of," and bound it fast to Friend Shark's tail. And presently the Shark said: "Why have you made the line fast to my tail?" But the Mouse-deer replied: "'Keep quite quiet ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... was as large as a small room, and it had a roof to it, and rattan shades at the sides that could be rolled up ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells

... friends who had killed the steer should have a party and have roast beef for us all, so we sent word we were all coming. Mrs. Noble, my neighbor worked all day to make a hoop skirt. She shirred and sewed together a piece of cloth about three yards around. In these shirrings she run rattan—a good heavy piece so it would stand out well. I made a black silk basque and skirt. My finery was all ready to put on. One of the neighbor's girls was to stay with the children. The baby had been quite restless, so according to the custom, I gave her a little laudanum to make her ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... Redfield National Bank was $615.20. I sat down at the table in my bedroom where I keep my accounts and wrote out a check to Roger Mifflin for $400. I put in plenty of curlicues after the figures so that no one could raise the check into $400,000; then I got out my old rattan suit case and put in some clothes. The whole business didn't take me ten minutes. I came downstairs to find Mrs. McNally looking sourly at the Parnassus from ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... with teeth like chamomile-petals and hair like halters wherefrom to hang hearts. Her cheeks are like blood-red anemones and her face like a pippin: she hath lips like wine and breasts like pomegranates twain and a shape supple as a rattan-cane. Her body is well formed and with sloping shoulders dight; she hath a nose like the edge of a sword shining bright and a forehead brilliant white and eyebrows which unite and eyes stained by Nature's hand black as night. If ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... seen Tukukan women come to Bontoc wearing a solid diadem about the hair. It consisted of a rattan foundation encircling the head, covered with blackened beeswax studded with three parallel rows of encircling bright-red seeds. It ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... three-fourths of a circle, but from their shape and the absence of a barb they cannot be so effective as those of European make: indeed these last were at Cape York preferred by the natives themselves. The line is neatly made from the tough fibres of the rattan, which are first scraped to the requisite degree of fineness with a sharp-edged Cyrena shell, then twisted and laid up in ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... materials cannot be obtained, commercially prepared ones may be substituted. Raffia, uncolored or colored with vegetable dyes, rattan reeds, and splints may be obtained wherever kindergarten supplies are kept, as well as in large seed stores and in most of the department stores in large cities. Of the many books that are appearing upon the subject probably none is more suggestive with ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp



Words linked to "Rattan" :   switch, cane, malacca, calamus



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