plum

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of several shrubs or small trees of the genus Prunus, bearing smooth-skinned, fleshy, edible fruit with a single hard-shelled stone that encloses the seed.
2. n. The fruit of any of these trees.
3. n. Any of several trees bearing plumlike fruit.
4. n. The fruit of such a tree.
5. n. A raisin, when added to a pudding or cake.
6. n. A sugarplum.
7. n. A dark purple to deep reddish purple.
8. n. An especially desirable position, assignment, or reward: an ambassadorship granted as a political plum.
9. adv. Variant of plumb.
10. adj. Variant of plumb.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A fruit of any of the trees called plums (see defs. 2 and 3); specifically, the fruit of a tree of the genus Prunus, distinguished from the peach and apricot by its smooth surface, smaller size, and unwrinkled stone, and from the cherry by the bloom on its surface and commonly larger size. Plums are of use chiefly as a dessert fruit (the green gage being esteemed the best of all varieties), and as a dried fruit in the form of prunes. (See prune.) Locally a liquor is manufactured from them, and sometimes an oil is expressed from the kernels.
2. n. One of several small trees of the genus Prunus, forming the section Prunus proper. The numerous varieties of the common garden-plum are often classed as P. domestica; but all these, together with the bullace-plum, known as P. insititia (see budlace), are believed to be derived ultimately from P. spinosa (P. communis), the blackthorn or sloe of Europe and temperate Asia, in its truly wild state a much branched shrub, the branches often ending in a stout thorn. Plum-wood is useful in cabinet-work and turnery. The plum is chiefly cultivated in France (in the valley of the Loire), in Germany, and in Bosnia, Servia, and Croatia. In America the plum suffers greatly from the ravages of the curculio. (See plum-curculio.) The Japanese plum, P. Japonica, though not insect-proof, is a valued acquisition in California and the southern tinted States. For native species, see beach-plum, cherry-plum, and wild plum, below.
3. n. One of numerous trees of other genera bearing plum-like fruit. See phrases below.
4. n. A grape dried in the sun; a raisin.
5. n. A good thing; the best or choicest part; a sugar-plum: in allusion to the use of plums or raisins in cakes, plum-pudding, etc.
6. n. The sum of £100,000 sterling; hence, any handsome sum or fortune generally; sometimes, also, a person possessing such a sum.
7. n. A recently introduced Japanese plum with red flesh. (U. S.)
8. n. Prunus Japonica and other true plums of Japan. See def. 2, and blood-plum .
9. n. In Sierra Leone, either of two species of Chrysobalanus, C. ellipticv.s and C.luteus
10. n. In eastern North America, the wild yellow or red plum, or Canada plum, P. Americana. It has a well-colored fruit with pleasant pulp, but tough acerb skin. It is common along streams, etc., and sometimes planted
11. n. In western North America, P subcordata, whose red fruit, which is large and edible, is often gathered.
12. n. In South Africa, Pappea Capensis.
13. n. In New South Wales, a tree, Sideroxylon australis, with drupaceous fruit, sometimes very tall, having a hard, prettily marked wood, available for cabinet purposes. See also Podotarpus. (See also gingerbread-plum, hog-plum, horse-plum, maiden-plum, mountain-plum, olive-plum.)
14. An obsolete spelling of plumb.
15. n. In southern New South Wales, a handsome timber-tree, Eucryphia Moorei, having a clear, moderately hard wood of a light brown color. It is often called acacia, or acacia-plum, since, when not in flower, it resembles some of the larger species of that tree.
16. n. The caper-tree, Capparis nobilis.
17. n. See bullace- plum.
18. n. A low species, Prunus injucunda, with a very bitter fruit, found in Georgia and Alabama.
19. n. See Canada plum.
20. n. The Port Arthur plum (which see, under plum).
21. A simplified and former spelling of plumb.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Plumb
2. adv. Completely; utterly.
3. v. mining To plumb.
4. n. The edible, fleshy stone fruit of Prunus domestica, often of a dark red or purple colour.
5. n. The stone-fruit tree which bears this fruit, Prunus domestica.
6. n. A dark bluish-red color/colour, the colour of some plums.
7. n. A desirable thing.
8. n. A raisin, when used in a pudding or cake.
9. n. pejorative A fool, idiot
10. n. slang, usually in plural A testicle.
11. n. The edible, fleshy stone of Prunus mume, an Asian fruit more closely related to the apricot than the plum, usually consumed pickled, dried, or as a juice or wine; ume.
12. n. The tree which bears this fruit, Prunus mume. See plum blossom.
13. adj. comparable Of a dark bluish-red colour.
14. adj. not comparable Choice; especially lavish or preferred.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) The edible drupaceous fruit of the Prunus domestica, and of several other species of Prunus; also, the tree itself, usually called plum tree.
2. n. A grape dried in the sun; a raisin.
3. n. A handsome fortune or property; formerly, in cant language, the sum of £100,000 sterling; also, the person possessing it.
4. n. Something likened to a plum in desirableness; a good or choice thing of its kind, as among appointments, positions, parts of a book, etc.
5. n. A color resembling that of a plum; a slightly grayish deep purple, varying somewhat in its red or blue tint.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of several trees producing edible oval fruit having a smooth skin and a single hard stone
2. adv. completely; used as intensifiers
3. adv. exactly.
4. n. a highly desirable position or assignment
5. n. any of numerous varieties of small to medium-sized round or oval fruit having a smooth skin and a single pit