cement

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A building material made by grinding calcined limestone and clay to a fine powder, which can be mixed with water and poured to set as a solid mass or used as an ingredient in making mortar or concrete.
2. n. Portland cement.
3. n. Concrete.
4. n. A substance that hardens to act as an adhesive; glue.
5. n. Something that serves to bind or unite: "Custom was in early days the cement of society” ( Walter Bagehot).
6. n. Geology A chemically precipitated substance that binds particles of clastic rocks.
7. n. Dentistry A substance used for filling cavities or anchoring crowns, inlays, or other restorations.
8. n. Variant of cementum.
9. v. To bind with or as if with cement.
10. v. To cover or coat with cement.
11. v. To become cemented.
12. idiom. in cement Firmly settled or determined; unalterable: The administration's position on taxes was set in cement despite the unfavorable public response.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Any composition which at one temperature or one degree of moisture is plastic and at another is tenacious. Cements are used for uniting materials of the same kind or of different kinds, or for forming smooth and impervious surfaces or coatings. The term properly includes papier-maché, gums, glues, mucilages, limes, mortars, and a great number of compounds of such nature as to admit of their assuming, under certain conditions, sticky, tenacious, or stone-like consistency. Cements are divided into classes, according to their use, as glass-cement, etc. The materials forming the cement are mixed with water, acids, oils, etc., to a paste, and applied to the surfaces to be joined together or coated, and then dried; or, either wet or dry, are applied hot, or are applied and then heated, when they become hard and tenacious. This hardening is called the “setting” of the cement. The cements in use in the arts are exceedingly numerous, and are composed of a great variety of materials.
2. n. Specifically A kind of mortar which sets or hardens under water: hence often called hydraulic cement. It is, however, often used in superior masonwork not intended to be covered by water. There are two kinds of cement well known in Europe, Portland and Roman. Portland cement (named from its resemblance in color to Portland stone) is made from selected materials, commonly chalk and river-mud or alluvial clay. Roman cement (unknown to the Romans, but deriving its name from a supposed resemblance to Roman mortar) was originally made of volcanic ashes, but is now more often made from materials obtained from the Jurassic series of rocks. Much of the cement used in the United States is that known as Rosendale. See cement-stone.
3. n. A name sometimes given by placer and hydraulic miners to any rather firmly compacted mass of detrital auriferous material. Usually, however, the application of the word is limited to detrital material of volcanic origin, consisting of fragmentary substances mixed with ashes and caused to cohere somewhat firmly by pressure, or by silicious or calcareous matter.
4. n. In anatomy, the cortical substance which forms the outer crust of a tooth from the point where the enamel terminates to the apex of the root, resembling bone in anatomical structure and chemical composition. Also called cementum. See cut under tooth.
5. n. In zoology, a substance which cements or glues, as the secretion by which a barnacle adheres.
6. n. Figuratively, bond of union; that which firmly unites persons or interests.
7. n. A compound made of pitch, brick-dust, plaster of Paris, etc., used by chasers and other artificers to put under their work that it may lie solid and firm, for the better receiving of the impression made by the punches and other tools.
8. n. A cement for securing rubber rings or plates to metal or wood. It consists of a solution of shellac in ten times its own weight of strong ammonia, left for a considerable time to soften without heat. Also called caoutchouc cement.
9. To unite by cement, as by mortar which hardens, or by other matter that produces cohesion of bodies.
10. Figuratively, to unite morally or socially in close or firm union.
11. To unite or become solid; unite and cohere.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable A powdered substance that develops strong adhesive properties when mixed with water.
2. n. uncountable The paste-like substance resulting from mixing such a powder with water.
3. n. uncountable Any material with strong adhesive properties.
4. n. countable A particular type or brand of cement.
5. v. To affix with cement.
6. v. figuratively To ensure an outcome.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Any substance used for making bodies adhere to each other, as mortar, glue, etc.
2. n. A kind of calcined limestone, or a calcined mixture of clay and lime, for making mortar which will harden under water.
3. n. The powder used in cementation. See Cementation, n., 2.
4. n. Bond of union; that which unites firmly, as persons in friendship, or men in society.
5. n. (Anat.) The layer of bone investing the root and neck of a tooth; -- called also cementum.
6. v. To unite or cause to adhere by means of a cement.
7. v. To unite firmly or closely.
8. v. To overlay or coat with cement.
9. v. To become cemented or firmly united; to cohere.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a building material that is a powder made of a mixture of calcined limestone and clay; used with water and sand or gravel to make concrete and mortar
2. n. a specialized bony substance covering the root of a tooth
3. v. make fast as if with cement
4. n. concrete pavement is sometimes referred to as cement
5. v. cover or coat with cement
6. n. any of various materials used by dentists to fill cavities in teeth
7. n. something that hardens to act as adhesive material
8. v. bind or join with or as if with cement