candle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A solid, usually cylindrical mass of tallow, wax, or other fatty substance with an axially embedded wick that is burned to provide light.
2. n. Something resembling this object in shape or use.
3. n. Physics An obsolete unit of luminous intensity, originally defined in terms of a wax candle with standard composition and equal to 1.02 candelas. Also called international candle.
4. n. Physics See candela.
5. v. To examine (an egg) for freshness or fertility by holding it before a bright light.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A taper; a cylindrical body of tallow, wax, spermaceti, or other fatty material, formed on a wick composed of linen or cotton threads woven or twisted loosely, or (as formerly) of the pith of a rush, and used as a source of artificial light.
2. n. One candle-power: used as a standard of comparison. See candle-power.
3. n. In sodamanuf., a name given to the jets of sulphureted hydrogen and carbonic oxid which escape from various parts of the roasted mixture of sodium sulphate, coal, and limestone, during the process of manufacture.
4. To examine (an egg) in an egg-tester by means of a lighted candle to determine its freshness. See egg-candling.

Wiktionary

1. n. A light source consisting of a wick embedded in a solid, flammable substance such as wax, tallow, or paraffin.
2. n. The protruding, removable portion of a filter, particularly a water filter.
3. n. obsolete A unit of luminous intensity, now replaced by the SI unit candela.
4. n. forestry a fast growing, light colored, upward-growing shoot on a pine tree in the spring. As growth slows in summer, the shoot darkens and is no longer highlighted to one’s view.
5. v. embryology To observe the growth of an embryo inside an egg, using a bright light source.
6. v. pottery To dry greenware prior to beginning of the firing cycle, setting the kiln at 200° Celsius until all water is removed from the greenware.
7. v. To check an item (such as an envelope) by holding it between a light souce and the eye.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A slender, cylindrical body of tallow, containing a wick composed of loosely twisted linen of cotton threads, and used to furnish light.
2. n. That which gives light; a luminary.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. examine eggs for freshness by holding them against a light
2. n. the basic unit of luminous intensity adopted under the Systeme International d'Unites; equal to 1/60 of the luminous intensity per square centimeter of a black body radiating at the temperature of 2,046 degrees Kelvin
3. n. stick of wax with a wick in the middle