Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

rattan

UK/ɹəˈtan/US/ɹəˈtæn/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,253 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: rattans

Rattan is a tough climbing palm stem woven into furniture. A rattan chair, woven rattan, rattan and bamboo.

It is a solid stem rather than a hollow one, which is what separates it from bamboo and makes it bendable when steamed. It is harvested from wild forest, and the trade is one of the arguments for keeping forests standing.

Dinesh Valke from Thane, India · CC BY-SA 2.0

Definitions of rattan

  1. 1nounrattanA tough climbing palm stem woven into furniture.C1

    “They furnished the conservatory with rattan chairs and a glass table.”

rattan is a material.

Where it comes from

  1. Malay

    rotan

  2. English, today

    rattan

Borrowed from Malay rotan.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Materials & Substances

Practise this word

rattan in the wild

  • Most rattan palms are ecologically considered lianas due to their climbing habits, unlike other palm species.

    Rattan

  • Some species of rattan also have edible scaly fruit and heart of palm.

    Rattan

  • Wicker is traditionally made of plant-based material, such as willow, rattan, reed, and bamboo, though the term also applies to products woven from synthetic fibers.

    Wicker

  • The aim of the game is to kick a soft ball made out of rattan fragments, back and forth over a net in the middle of the court.

    Sipa

  • The Wakefield Rattan Company was the world's leading manufacturer of rattan furniture and objects in the second half of the 19th century.

    Wakefield Rattan Company

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.