agave

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of numerous plants of the genus Agave, native to hot, dry regions of the New World and having basal rosettes of tough, sword-shaped, often spiny-margined leaves. Agaves are grown for ornament, fiber, and food. Also called century plant.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A large North American genus of plants, of the natural order Amaryllidaceæ, chiefly Mexican. They are acaulescent or nearly so, of slow growth, often large, consisting of a dense cluster of rigid fleshy leaves, which are spine-tipped and usually spinosely toothed. The best-known species is the century-plant, or American aloe, A. Americana, first introduced from Mexico into Europe in 1561, and now frequently cultivated for ornament, as are also various other species. It lives many years, 10 to 50 or more, before flowering, whence the name century-plant. At maturity it throws up rapidly from its center a tall scape bearing a large compound inflorescence, and dies after perfecting its fruit. It is extensively cultivated in Mexico under the name of maguey, and is put to many uses. The sap, obtained in abundance from the plant when the flowering stem is just ready to burst forth, produces when fermented a beverage resembling cider, called by the Mexicans pulque. An extract of the leaves is used as a substitute for soap, and the flower-stem, when withered, is cut up into slices to form razor-strops. The leaves of nearly all the species yield a more or less valuable fiber, which is made into thread and ropes and has been used in the manufacture of paper. Sisal hemp, or-henequin, is the product of A. Ixtli, and is exported in large quantities from Yucatan. A West Indian species, A. Keratto, closely resembling A. Americana, yields the keratto fiber. A. Virginica, of the southern United States, known as false aloe, belongs to a group of species with less rigid leaves and with the solitary flowers in a simple spike.
2. n. [lowercase] A plant of this genus.

Wiktionary

1. n. A genus of plants (scientific name: Agave) of which the chief species is the maguey or century plant. Attaining maturity, it produces a gigantic flower stem.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A genus of plants (order Amaryllidaceæ) of which the chief species is the maguey or century plant (Agave Americana), wrongly called Aloe. It is from ten to seventy years, according to climate, in attaining maturity, when it produces a gigantic flower stem, sometimes forty feet in height, and perishes. The fermented juice is the pulque of the Mexicans; distilled, it yields mescal. A strong thread and a tough paper are made from the leaves, and the wood has many uses.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. tropical American plants with basal rosettes of fibrous sword-shaped leaves and flowers in tall spikes; some cultivated for ornament or for fiber