capsule

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A small soluble container, usually made of gelatin, that encloses a dose of an oral medicine or a vitamin.
2. n. Anatomy A fibrous, membranous, or fatty sheath that encloses an organ or part, such as the sac surrounding the kidney or the fibrous tissues that surround a joint.
3. n. Microbiology A mucopolysaccharide outer shell enveloping certain bacteria.
4. n. Botany A dry dehiscent fruit that develops from two or more united carpels.
5. n. Botany The thin-walled, spore-containing structure of mosses and related plants.
6. n. A space capsule.
7. n. A brief summary; a condensation.
8. adj. Highly condensed; very brief: a capsule description.
9. adj. Very small; compact.
10. v. To enclose in or furnish with a capsule.
11. v. To condense or summarize: capsuled the news.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A small casing, envelop, covering, etc., natural or artificial, usually thin or membranous; a cover or container of some small object or quantity of matter. Specifically.
2. n. In botany, a dehiscent pod or seed-vessel, either membranous or woody, composed of two or more carpels, which at maturity becomes dry and opens by regular valves corresponding in number to the carpels, or twice as numerous. The term is sometimes applied to any dry dehiscent fruit, and even to the spore-cases of various cryptogamic plants.
3. n. In chem.: A small saucer made of clay for roasting samples of ores, or for melting them.
4. n. A small shallow vessel made of Berlin ware, platinum, etc., for evaporations, solutions, and the like.
5. n. In anatomy and zoology, a membrane or ligament inclosing some part or organ as in a bag or sac; a saccular envelop or investment: as, the capsule of the crystalline lens of the eye; the capsule of a joint, as the hip.
6. n. In anatomy, some part or organ likened to a capsule: as, the adrenal capsules.
7. n. In Protozoa, the included perforated test of a radiolarian.
8. n. In entomology, a horny case inclosing the eggs of an insect, as those of the cockroach. Also called oötheca.
9. n. A cap of thin metal, such as tin-foil, put over the mouth of a corked bottle to preserve the cork from drying. Wine of good quality when bottled was formerly sealed with wax upon the cork, but the use of the capsule is now almost universal, the grower's or dealer's name or device being commonly stamped upon it.
10. n. A small gelatinous case or envelop in which nauseous medicines are inclosed to be swallowed.
11. n. The shell of a metallic cartridge or of a fulminating tube.
12. To furnish (a bottle, medicinal powder, etc.) with a capsule.

Wiktionary

1. n. physiology A membranous envelope.
2. n. botany A type of simple, dehiscent, dry fruit (seed-case) produced by many species of flowering plants, such as poppy, lily, orchid, willow and cotton.
3. n. botany A sporangium, especially in bryophytes.
4. n. A detachable part of rocket or spacecraft (usually in the nose) containing crew's living space.
5. n. pharmacy A small container containing a dose of medicine.
6. n. dialectal, UK A weasel.
7. n. attributively, figuratively in a brief, condensed or compact form

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) a dry fruit or pod which is made up of several parts or carpels, and opens to discharge the seeds
2. n. A small saucer of clay for roasting or melting samples of ores, etc.; a scorifier.
3. n. a small, shallow, evaporating dish, usually of porcelain.
4. n. (Med.) A small cylindrical or spherical gelatinous envelope in which nauseous or acrid doses are inclosed to be swallowed.
5. n. (Anat.) A membranous sac containing fluid, or investing an organ or joint. Also, a capsulelike organ.
6. n. A metallic seal or cover for closing a bottle.
7. n. A small cup or shell, as of metal, for a percussion cap, cartridge, etc.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a shortened version of a written work
2. n. a spacecraft designed to transport people and support human life in outer space
3. n. a structure that encloses a body part
4. v. enclose in a capsule
5. v. put in a short or concise form; reduce in volume
6. n. a pill in the form of small rounded gelatinous container with medicine inside
7. n. a dry dehiscent seed vessel or the spore-containing structure of e.g. mosses
8. n. a pilot's seat in an airplane that can be forcibly ejected in the case of an emergency; then the pilot descends by parachute
9. n. a small container