also cane-brake, "a thicket of canes," 1770, American English, from cane (n.) + brake (n.3).
Entries linking to canebrake
cane n.
late 14c., "long slender woody stem," from Old French cane "reed, cane, spear" (13c., Modern French canne), from Latin canna "reed, cane," from Greek kanna, perhaps from Babylonian-Assyrian qanu "tube, reed" (compare Hebrew qaneh, Arabic qanah "reed"), which may come from Sumerian-Akkadian gin "reed." The sense of "length of cane used as a walking stick" is from 1580s.
brake n.3
"thicket; place overgrown with bushes, brambles, or brushwood," mid-15c., originally "fern-brake, thicket of fern," perhaps from or related to Middle Low German brake "rough or broken ground," from the root of break (v.). Or, more likely, from Middle English brake "fern" (c. 1300), from Old Norse (compare Swedish bräken, Danish bregne), and related to bracken. In the U.S., the word was applied to cane thickets.