pomegranate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A deciduous shrub or small tree (Punica granatum) native to Asia and widely cultivated for its edible fruit.
2. n. The fruit of this tree, having a tough reddish rind, and containing many seeds, each enclosed in a juicy, mildly acidic, red pulp.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The fruit of the tree Punica Granatum. It is of the size of an orange, has six rounded angles, and bears at the summit the remains of the calyx-lobes. It has a hard rind filled with numerous seeds, each inclosed in a layer of pulp of reddish color and pleasant subacid taste (the edible part of the fruit). It affords a cooling drink, and in Persia a wine is derived from it, as in Mexico an ardent spirit. The rind contains a large amount of tannin, and has been employed in tanning and as an astringent medicine. The pomegranate is outwardly of a beautiful orange color shaded with red.
2. n. The tree, Punica Granatum, which produces the fruit pomegranate. A native of western Asia to northwestern India, it is now widely cultivated and naturalized in subtropical regions. It is a deciduous tree, 15 or 20 feet high, with numerous slender branches, some of them armed with thorns, the leaves lance-shaped or oblong. It is a fine ornamental plant, the flowers scarlet, large, and sometimes doubled. The latter are used in medicine like the fruit-rind, under the name of balustines, and they also afford a red dye. The bark supplies the color of yellow morocco leather, and that of the root is an efficient tæniacide, this property residing in an alkaloid, pelletierine, contained in it. It also yields punicotannic acid and mannit. The pomegranate has been known as a fruit-tree from the earliest times; it was common in Italy in the third century b. c., was familiar to the Hebrews, and its fruit was copied on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, and later on the pillars of Solomon's temple. It thrives in the southern United States, and can be grown with moderate protection even in the climate of New York.
3. n. In Queensland, a small tree, Capparis nobilis, with some resemblance to the pomegranate.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any of several shrubs or small trees, of the genus Punica, bearing the fruit of the same name.
2. n. The fruit of these plants, about the size of an orange and having a red pulp containing many seeds and enclosed in a thick, hard, reddish skin.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) The fruit of the tree Punica Granatum; also, the tree itself (see balaustine), which is native in the Orient, but is successfully cultivated in many warm countries, and as a house plant in colder climates. The fruit is as large as an orange, and has a hard rind containing many rather large seeds, each one separately covered with crimson, acid pulp.
2. n. A carved or embroidered ornament resembling a pomegranate.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. shrub or small tree native to southwestern Asia having large red many-seeded fruit
2. n. large globular fruit having many seeds with juicy red pulp in a tough brownish-red rind