rattan

UK/ɹəˈtan//ɹəˈtæn/

rattan noun: any of several species of climbing palm of the genus Calamus.

Image: Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

rattan (countable and uncountable, plural rattans)

Any of several species of climbing palm of the genus Calamus.
(uncountable) The plant used as a material for making furniture, baskets etc.
- Then, how comparatively sweet was everything on board - no paint, no tar, no new rope, (vilest of smells to the qualmish!) no grease, or oil, or varnish; but instead of these, bamboo and rattan, and coir rope and palm thatch; pure vegetable fibres, which smell pleasantly if they smell at all, and...1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 162
- 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
(broadly) 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
- “My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

Verb

rattan (third-person singular simple present rattans, present participle rattaning, simple past and past participle rattaned)

(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

Proper noun capitalized: Rattan

Rattan (plural Rattans)

A surname.

rattan meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Telugu and Gujarati

rattan in Tamil

climbing palm: பிரம்பு pirampu, சூரல் cūral
material: பிரம்பு pirampu

rattan in Urdu

بید

rattan in Telugu

climbing palm: పేము pēmu

rattan in Gujarati

rattan: નેતર netar

More languagesFewer languages

rattan in Malay: rotan
rattan in Indonesian: rotan
rattan in Thai: หวาย wǎai
rattan in Vietnamese: mây, song
rattan in Myanmar: ကြိမ် krim

Forms of rattan

Noun
plural	rattans
alternative form	ratan
Verb
third-person singular present	rattans
present participle	rattaning
past participle	rattaned
past	rattaned
Proper noun
plural	Rattans

Origin of rattan

Borrowed from Malay rotan.

Words formed from rattan

Phrases with rattan

rattan palms

Words that rhyme with rattan

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about rattan

What does rattan mean?: Rattan means any of several species of climbing palm of the genus Calamus.
What is rattan in Tamil?: Rattan in Tamil is பிரம்பு (pirampu), சூரல் (cūral). See Rattan meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is rattan?: Rattan can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce rattan?: Rattan is pronounced /ɹəˈtan/ (UK).
What is the plural of rattan?: The plural of rattan is rattans.

Words near rattan in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: rattan (page history and authors); Rattan (page history and authors); rattan (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); નેતર (Gujarati) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-rattan.ogg.

Cite this entry: “rattan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rattan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.