lake

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A large inland body of fresh water or salt water.
2. n. A scenic pond, as in a park.
3. n. A large pool of liquid: a lake of spilled coffee on my desk.
4. n. A pigment consisting of organic coloring matter with an inorganic, usually metallic base or carrier, used in dyes, inks, and paints.
5. n. A deep red.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A body of water surrounded by land, or not forming part of the ocean and occupying a depression below the ordinary drainage-level of the region. Lakes are depressions or basins filled by streams flowing into them, the water thus introduced generally accumulating until it runs over at the lowest point of the edge of the depression, and then flowing to the sea. But in some cases a river may fill a number of such depressions in succession before reaching the sea, as is very notably the case with the chain of lakes and rivers beginning with Lake Superior and ending in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The larger depressions which when filled with water become lakes are ordinarily orographic in character—that is, they owe their origin to movements of the earth's crust, in the same manner as mountain-ranges. Many smaller lakes, however, especially the shallower ones, fill depressions which have originated from local or less general causes, as when produced by unequal decay or erosion of rocks, or by irregular distribution of surface detritus. The existence of a depression being given, the question whether it shall be entirely filled with water is one of climate. In regions of small rainfall and large evaporation, depressions occur which do not become filled with water, and consequently do not furnish any surplus which shall overflow and run to the sea. Such regions, having no drainage to the sea, are called closed basins, and there are very large areas of this character in Asia and North America, and smaller ones elsewhere. The water in the lakes occupying the lowest portion of such depressions is always more or less saline, because that which is brought in leaves as it evaporates a constantly accumulating store of the saline matters which it holds in solution. The Caspian Sea is properly a salt lake; and some lakes are excessively salt, as the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the Dead Sea (also properly a lake). There are lakes of considerable size, as several in Canada, which have no visible inlets, being fed entirely from subterranean sources.
2. n. A relatively small pond partly or wholly artificial, as an ornament of a park or of public or private grounds.
3. n. A stream; rivulet.
4. n. A pit; den.
5. To play; sport; trifle; “lark.”
6. n. Play; sport; game.
7. n. A contest; a fight.
8. n. A pigment formed by absorbing animal, vegetable, or coal-tar coloring matter from an aqueous solution by means of metallic bases. The general method of preparation is to add an alkali solution to an infusion of the substance affording the desired color, as madder, cochineal, logwood, or quercitron. To this is added a solution of common alum, producing a precipitate of alumina, which in settling carries with it the coloring matter, thus forming the lake. As paints, lakes lack body, and are mostly used in glazing over other colors. From cochineal is prepared carmine, the finest of the red lakes. Crimson lake is a cochineal lake containing more aluminous base than carmine. Carminated lake is the cheaper and weaker lake made from cochineal after the carmine has been extracted. Scarlet lake is prepared by mixing vermilion with crimson lake. Purple lake is a species of crimson lake with a purple hue. Madder lakes are produced by precipitating the coloring matter of the madder-root with an alumina base. They range in color from light pink through red to brown and purple. Indian lake is the same as lac-lake (which see, under lac). Yellow lake is made from quercitron-bark, sometimes from Persian or French Avignon berries. Green lake is compounded by adding Prussian blue to yellow lake. Citrine lake is an obsolete term for brown pink. Burnt lake is obtained by partially charring crimson lake. From logwood are obtained lakes of various shades of deep-brownish red, as rose lake, Florence lake, Florentine lake, etc. From certain of the coal-tar colors are obtained lakes almost identical in color with cochineal and madder and equal in permanency.
9. n. A kind of fine white linen.
10. A dialectal form of leak.
11. n. An obsolete or dialectal form of lack.
12. To become laky, or like a lake (pigment) in color. See laky.
13. To cause to resemble a lake (pigment) in color; specifically, discharge (the hemoglobin) rapidly from the erythrocytes into the blood-plasma.

Wiktionary

1. n. Large, landlocked, naturally occurring stretch of water.
2. n. an area characterised by its many lakes; e.g, the English Lake District is often shortened to The Lakes.
3. n. A large amount of liquid: a wine lake.
4. n. An offering, sacrifice, gift.
5. n. Play, sport, fun, glee.
6. n. Fine linen.
7. n. In dyeing and painting, an often fugitive crimson or vermillion pigment derived from an organic colorant (cochineal or madder, for example) and an inorganic, generally metallic mordant.
8. v. To present an offering.
9. v. To leap, jump, exert oneself, play.
10. v. To make lake-red.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A pigment formed by combining some coloring matter, usually by precipitation, with a metallic oxide or earth, esp. with aluminium hydrate
2. n. A kind of fine white linen, formerly in use.
3. v. To play; to sport.
4. n. A large body of water contained in a depression of the earth's surface, and supplied from the drainage of a more or less extended area.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a purplish red pigment prepared from lac or cochineal
2. n. a body of (usually fresh) water surrounded by land
3. n. any of numerous bright translucent organic pigments