English edit

Etymology edit

ash +‎ plant

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

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.