Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various viscous, water-soluble polysaccharides produced by certain plants, algae, and microorganisms.
  • noun A sticky substance used as an adhesive.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Moldi-ness; mustiness; rottenness; a slimy mass.
  • noun Gum extracted from the seeds, roots, and bark of plants.
  • noun In chem., the general name of a group of carbohydrates, having the formula C6H10O5n.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot. Chem.) A gummy or gelatinous substance produced in certain plants by the action of water on the cell wall, as in the seeds of quinces, of flax, etc.
  • noun An aqueous solution of gum, or of substances allied to it; a glue; a liquid adhesive

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A thick gluey substance (gum) produced by many plants and some microorganisms.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a gelatinous substance secreted by plants
  • noun cement consisting of a sticky substance that is used as an adhesive

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English muscilage, from Old French mucilage, from Late Latin mūcilāgō, mūcilāgin-, from Latin mūcēre, to be moldy, musty, from mūcus, mucus.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • "Up to 124 miles (200 kilometers) long, the mucilages appear naturally, usually near Mediterranean coasts in summer. The season's warm weather makes seawater more stable, which facilitates the bonding of the organic matter that makes up the blobs."

    - Christine Dell'Amore, Giant, Mucus-Like Sea Blobs on the Rise, Pose Danger, nationalgeographic.com, 8 Oct 2009.

    October 12, 2009

  • That is just utterly vile. And scary.

    October 15, 2009

  • "Potato starch, known as mucilage, was treated as a thickener for soups and stews, though from the 1820s its use would be overtaken by arrowroot, imported from the East Indies."

    --Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 268

    January 18, 2017