Malacca cane

Malacca cane

English

An 18th-century Malacca cane

The knob of a 19th-century Masonic Malacca cane

Alternative forms

• malacca cane

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, No. 30, p. 483:

     The mallets or sticks [sc. used in polo] are generally of malacca cane.

   • 1965, Charles Shuttleworth, Malayan Safari, p. 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, p. 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, Vol. I, p. 443:

     Malacca canes have frequently to be colored in parts.

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, OCLC 59891543, page 7:

     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

• Malacca in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• “cane, n¹.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1888.
• “Malacca, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2000.