ash

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The grayish-white to black powdery residue left when something is burned.
2. n. Geology Pulverized particulate matter ejected by volcanic eruption.
3. n. The mineral residue of incinerated organic matter, used as an additive in pet foods.
4. n. Ruins: the ashes of a lost culture.
5. n. Bodily remains, especially after cremation or decay.
6. v. To reduce or convert to ash: ash a tissue sample for analysis.
7. n. Any of various chiefly deciduous ornamental or timber trees of the genus Fraxinus, having opposite, pinnately compound leaves, clusters of small flowers, and one-seeded winged fruits.
8. n. The strong, elastic wood of this tree, used for furniture, tool handles, and sporting goods such as baseball bats.
9. n. Linguistics The letter æ in Old English and some modern phonetic alphabets, representing the vowel sound of Modern English ash.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In botany: The popular name of trees belonging to the genus Fraxinus (which see). The common ash of Europe, F. excelsior, is native through the greater part of Europe, northern Africa, and some parts of Asia. It is a handsome ornamental tree, and is exceedingly valuable for its timber, which is close-grained and remarkably tongh and elastic. It was therefore in early times the chief material in the construction of bows and spears, and is now largely used wherever these qualities are needed. In its younger state the tree is called ground-ash, and a variety is well known in cultivation as weeping-ash. The flowering ash, F. Ornus, is a small tree of southern Europe, sometimes cultivated for ornament. It yields a saccharine exudation, which forms the best known and most important of the various kinds of manna. In the United States several species of the genus are commonly known under the name, as the black ash, ground-ash, or hoop-ash, F. sambucifolia; the blue ash, F. quadrangulata; the green ash, F. viridis; the red ash, F. pubescens; the water-ash, F. platycarpa; and the white ash, F. Americana. The last is the most valuable; its wood closely resembles that of the European ash, and is used for similar purposes.
2. n. The name (with some adjunct) of various trees or shrubs of other genera, generally from some resemblance in foliage or qualities of the wood to the common ash. (See below.) Also, in parts of England, the name of some herbaceous plants, chiefly umbelliferous, as the ground-ash, or ashweed, Ægopodium Podagraria and Angelica sylvestris, and the sweet ash, Anthriscus sylvestris.
3. n. The wood of the ash-tree; hence, something made of ash, as the shaft of a lance or spear.
4. Pertaining to or like the ash; made of ash.
5. n. What remains of a body that is burned; the incombustible residue of organic substances (animal or vegetable) remaining after combustion; in common usage, any incombustible residue of materials used as fuel: usually in the plural. As a commercial term, the word generally means the ashes of vegetable substances, from which are extracted the alkaline matters called potash, pearlash, kelp, barilla, etc.
6. n. Fine material thrown out of a volcano in eruption. It is not, like ordinary ashes, a residuum of the combustion of a substance containing carbonaceous mingled with inorganic matter, but is finely pulverized lava, derived in part from the actual tearing asunder of the not fully consolidated material by the expansive force of the gases which it contains, and in part from mechanical pulverization by friction in the chimney of the volcano. Larger particles are called capilli; coherent masses of still larger size, scoriœ, cinders, and bombs. If the erupted ashes fall into water, they assume a stratified form. Rocks of this character have been called igneo-aqueous and pluto-neptunian. See lava, volcano, and tuff.
7. n. plural The remains of the human body when burned; hence, a dead body or corpse; mortal remains.
8. To strew or sprinkle with ashes.
9. To convert into ashes.
10. n. In Australia, the name of various trees having a real or fancied resemblance to those of the genus Fraxinus, especially of trees of the genera Elæocarpus and Flindersia.
11. n. Fraxinus lanceolata.
12. n. A small Australian tree, Elæodendrum australe, whose close-grained pinkish wood is used for staves, oars, and shingles. Also called olive-wood.
13. n. The green ash, Fraxinus lanceolata.
14. n. The involatile constituents of wine; the solid residue evaporated to dryness.

Wiktionary

1. n. countable, uncountable A shade tree of the genus Fraxinus.
2. n. uncountable The wood of this tree.
3. n. The traditional name for the ae ligature (æ), as used in Old English.
4. n. The solid remains of a fire.
5. n. chemistry The nonaqueous remains of a material subjected to any complete oxidation process.
6. n. Fine particles from a volcano, volcanic ash.
7. n. in the plural Human (or animal) remains after cremation.
8. n. figuratively What remains after a catastrophe.
9. v. chemistry To reduce to a residue of ash. See ashing.
10. v. To hit the end off of a burning cigar or cigarette.
11. v. obsolete To cover newly-sown fields of crops with ashes.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) A genus of trees of the Olive family, having opposite pinnate leaves, many of the species furnishing valuable timber, as the European ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and the white ash (Fraxinus Americana).
2. n. The tough, elastic wood of the ash tree.
3. n. sing. of ashes.
4. v. To strew or sprinkle with ashes.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. convert into ashes
2. n. strong elastic wood of any of various ash trees; used for furniture and tool handles and sporting goods such as baseball bats
3. n. the residue that remains when something is burned
4. n. any of various deciduous pinnate-leaved ornamental or timber trees of the genus Fraxinus