Canes

How to spell canes

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce canes

What does canes mean?

1. nounSlender plant stems or the walking sticks made from them, more than one in number.
2. verbBeats or strikes someone with a stick as a punishment.

Canes in a sentence

• noun

  The gardener tied the raspberry canes to the support wire.

• verb

  In the old novel, the harsh schoolmaster canes any boy who arrives late.

• noun

  Several wooden canes leaned against the wall by the front door.

• verb

  The guidebook explains that the sergeant routinely canes recruits for minor faults.

Where does canes come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin canna, meaning a reed or a cane, which itself was borrowed from the Greek kanna for the same tall, hollow-stemmed plant. The same root quietly survives in 'canal' and 'cannon', both of which trace back to the idea of a long, tube-like channel. English took 'cane' in through Old French during the 1300s, first naming the woody stems of reeds, bamboo and sugar plants, then extending to the walking stick cut from such a stem. By the 1600s it also worked as a verb meaning to beat someone with such a stick. The plural and verb form simply add -s, and because the silent 'e' keeps the long vowel, writers rarely need anything fancier than the bare 'canes'.

How the word is built

• cane (a slender stem or stick)
• -s (plural / third-person singular)