hazel

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various shrubs or small trees of the genus Corylus, especially the European species C. avellana or the American species C. americana, bearing edible nuts enclosed in a leafy husk. Also called filbert.
2. n. A hazelnut.
3. n. A light brown or yellowish brown.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A plant of the genus Corylus, shrubs or small trees belonging to the natural order Cupuliferæ, or oak family, and giving name to the tribe Coryleæ, to which the hornbeams also belong. The European hazel, Corylus Avellana, may become a small tree, and its wood has valuable qualities. The American hazel, C. Americana, is a bush, usually growing in dense thickets from which it excludes nearly all other vegetation. The beaked hazel is C. rostrata, the more northern of the American species. Impressions of leaves have been found in a fossil state which cannot be distinguished from the leaves of C. Americana and C. rostrata. These impressions occur in what is known to geologists as the Fort Union group, of Upper Cretaceous or Lower Tertiary age, in the lower Yellowstone valley in Montana. The type is therefore very ancient. See Corylus.
2. Made of or belonging to the hazel.
3. Of a light-brown color, like the hazelnut.
4. n. The wood of the sweet-gum, Liquidambar Styraciflua: a common use of the word among lumbermen and builders of the eastern United States.
5. n. In Australia, either of two small evergreen trees of the buckthorn family, Pomaderris apetala and P. lanigera, yielding excellent wood. See bastard dogwood
6. n. cooper's-wood, and Pomaderris.
7. n. A soil consisting of a mixture of gravel or sand, clay, and loam.

Wiktionary

1. n. A tree or shrub of the genus Corylus, bearing edible nuts called hazelnuts or filberts.
2. n. The nut of the hazel tree.
3. n. The wood of a hazelnut tree.
4. n. A greenish-brown colour, the colour of a ripe hazelnut.
5. adj. Of a greenish-brown colour. (often used to refer to eye colour)

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) A shrub or small tree of the genus Corylus, as the Corylus avellana, bearing a nut containing a kernel of a mild, farinaceous taste; the filbert. The American species are Corylus Americana, which produces the common hazelnut, and Corylus rostrata. See filbert.
2. n. A miner's name for freestone.
3. adj. Consisting of hazels, or of the wood of the hazel; pertaining to, or derived from, the hazel.
4. adj. Of a light brown color, like the hazelnut.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a shade of brown that is yellowish or reddish; it is a greenish shade of brown when used to describe the color of someone's eyes
2. adj. of a light brown or yellowish brown color
3. n. the fine-grained wood of a hazelnut tree (genus Corylus) and the hazel tree (Australian genus Pomaderris)
4. n. Australian tree grown especially for ornament and its fine-grained wood and bearing edible nuts
5. n. any of several shrubs or small trees of the genus Corylus bearing edible nuts enclosed in a leafy husk