layer

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. One that lays: a tile layer.
2. n. A hen kept for laying eggs.
3. n. A single thickness of a material covering a surface or forming an overlying part or segment: a layer of dust on the windowsill; a cake with four layers.
4. n. A usually horizontal deposit or expanse; a stratum: layers of sedimentary rock; a layer of warm air.
5. n. A depth or level: a poem with several layers of meaning.
6. n. Botany A stem that is covered with soil for rooting while still part of the living plant.
7. n. An item of clothing worn over or under another.
8. v. To divide or form into layers: layered gravel and charcoal to make a filter.
9. v. To cut (hair) into different, usually overlapping lengths.
10. v. Botany To propagate (a plant) by means of a layer.
11. v. To wear (clothing) in layers.
12. v. To form or come apart as layers.
13. v. Botany To take root as a result of layering.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One who or that which lays, in any sense of the verb lay: as, a brick layer; specifically, a hen that lays eggs: as, she is a good layer.
2. n. A thickness of some material laid or resting upon or spread over a surface of any kind; a stratum of moderate thickness: as, a layer of paint; successive layers of clay, shale, and slate; a cake made in layers; the five layers of the muscles of the back.
3. n. In masonry and bricklaying:
4. n. Same as course, 16 .
5. n. A bed of mortar or cement.
6. n. In leather manufacturing, a welt or strengthening strip.
7. n. A shoot or twig of a plant, not detached from the stock, partly laid under ground for growth or propagation.
8. n. In tanning, a pit or vat containing a strong solution of tannin, in which hides are laid near the end of the tanning process. Also called bloomer-pit.
9. In horticulture, to propagate by bending the shoot of a living stem into the soil, the shoot striking root while still fed by the parent plant.
10. n. In oyster culture, an artificial oyster-bed.
11. n. In cattle-raising, a field or yard in which cattle ready for shipment are kept.
12. n. In phytogeography, one of several strata of plants of different vegetation forms met with in some formations, especially in forests. Thus in a forest, beneath the facies, or primary layer consisting of large trees, there may be successively a layer of small trees and shrubs, one of bushes, then upper, middle, and lower herbaceous layers, and finally a ground-layer of mosses, lichens, etc. F. E. Clements regards these layers as vertical zones. See zone, 6. Pound and Clements.

Wiktionary

1. n. A single thickness of some material covering a surface.
2. n. A (usually) horizontal deposit; a stratum.
3. n. A person who lays things, such as tiles.
4. n. A mature female bird, insect, etc. that is able to lay eggs.
5. n. A hen kept to lay eggs.
6. n. A shoot of a plant, laid underground for growth.
7. v. transitive, intransitive to cut or divide (something) into layers
8. v. transitive, intransitive to arrange (something) in layers.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One who, or that which, lays.
2. n. That which is laid; a stratum; a bed; one thickness, course, or fold laid over another
3. n. A shoot or twig of a plant, not detached from the stock, laid under ground for growth or propagation.
4. n. An artificial oyster bed.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. make or form a layer
2. n. an abstract place usually conceived as having depth
3. n. a hen that lays eggs
4. n. thin structure composed of a single thickness of cells
5. n. single thickness of usually some homogeneous substance
6. n. a relatively thin sheetlike expanse or region lying over or under another