1 a house: I hid never deeked [seen] a cane like it. Her ornaments were shining and everything intae [in] her hoose wis spick and span. la16-.
2 a farmhouse 20. etymology: Cant; Romany; Borrow suggests a Hebrew root; form kain also collected by EMcC/PS and attested by BS in TDITA; form cian collected by TN; form kane collected by RD and Rev John Baird from Kirk Yetholm Gypsies and attested by Galloway and Perthshire and Argyleshire Tinkler-Gypsies and by JS and SS; attested in Beurla Reagaird; forms kyen, ken attested in Shelta; forms kane and cane attested by SR note:
This has also developed into other meanings within Scots, for example the author Archie Hind in his 1984 novel ‘Dear Green Place’ uses the term bammy kane to mean a psychiatric institution
Form ken attested in Lexicon Balatronicum (1811) and by Grose and Egan (1823) as ‘a house that harbours thieves’ and that it is Cant.
Canadian Paul Pope (2013) cites this forms kain and ken ‘a house’.