ashplant

ashplant

English

Etymology

ash +‎ plant

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈæʃ.plænt/

Noun

ashplant (plural ashplants)

1. An ash sapling.
2. (Ireland) A walking stick.
   • 1922, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, page 264:

     The colonnade above him made him think vaguely of an ancient temple and the ashplant on which he leaned wearily of the curved stick of an augur. / He began to beat the frayed end of his ashplant against the base of a pillar.

   • 1928, Mary Butts, Armed With Madness, page 8:

     She look her hat, and ashplant, and left them.

   • 1969, Seamus Heaney, The Outlaw, line 20-21

     "She'll do," said Kelly and tapped his ash-plant / Across her hindquarters.

   • 2001, Carol Kendall, Erik Blegvad, The Gammage Cup: A Novel of the Minnipins, page 221

     Unconscious of their bulging eyes, he pounded on the door of the mayor's house with the knob of his ashplant.

3. A stick kept for administering corporal punishment, a cane.
   • 1934. Frank Richards, The Magnet, Kidnapped from the Air.

     Bob Cherry bent over and touched his toes. The ashplant swished and swished.