Other forms: canes, caning, caned
To cane somebody is to beat them with a stick. He was caned at school, caning was abolished, caned for it.
Caning was a standard school punishment in Britain until it was banned in state schools in 1986 and in private schools in the 1990s, and it remains a judicial punishment in a few countries. The noun cane is the stick, and also a walking stick and the tall woody stem of certain plants: sugar cane, bamboo cane, raspberry canes. Note cane furniture, made from woven rattan, and caned in British slang for badly beaten in a match.
1verbcaneTo beat somebody with a stick.
“He was caned twice in one term for the same offence.”
2nounwoodyA stick, or the woody stem of certain plants.
“The raspberry canes need cutting back in February.”
cane is a stick, or a beating.
Latin canna meant a reed, borrowed from Greek and before that from Akkadian qanu. The same word gives canal, cannon and canyon, all named for a hollow tube — and canon, from a reed used as a measuring rod.
Middle English
cane
English, today
cane
From Middle English cane. From Middle English cane, canne, from Old French cane (“sugar cane”), from Latin canna (“reed”), from Ancient Greek κάννα, from akk qanûm (“reed”). a doublet of canna and kaneh. Related to channel and canal.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA