rattan

Etymology

Borrowed from Malay rotan.

noun

1. Any of several species of climbing palm of the genus Calamus.
2. (uncountable) The plant used as a material for making furniture, baskets etc.
   It took Elwood an hour to find Mr. Gladwell, who sat in a big rattan chair at the edge of the sweet potato fields. 2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 180
3. (by extension) A cane made from this material.
   He who first acts as striker asks the other how many blows of the rattan he will bear on his forearm without crying out. 1906, Walter William Skeat, Charles Otto Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula
   […]the rattan is still a valued instrument of discipline[…] 2008, Jean-François Bayart, Andrew Brown, Global Subjects: A Political Critique of Globalization

verb

1. (transitive) To beat with a rattan cane.
   Meanwhile Captain Colville rattaned Pearson very severely […] 1915, Edward Walford, George Latimer Apperson, The Antiquary, volume 51, page 56