pore

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To read or study carefully and attentively: pored over the classified ads in search of a new job.
2. v. To gaze intently; stare.
3. v. To meditate deeply; ponder: pored on the matter.
4. n. A minute opening in tissue, as in the skin of an animal, serving as an outlet for perspiration, or in a plant leaf or stem, serving as a means of absorption and transpiration.
5. n. A space in rock, soil, or unconsolidated sediment that is not occupied by mineral matter and that allows the passage or absorption of fluids: Water seeped into the pores of the rock.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To gaze earnestly or steadily; look with close and steady attention or application; read or examine anything with steady perseverance: generally followed by on, upon, or over.
2. n. A small opening or orifice; a hole, aperture, or perforation; a foramen; an opening in general: as, the pores of a sponge. The term is especially used for a minute perforation, invisible to the naked eye, in a membrane, through which fluids may pass. Such are the pores of the skin, formed by the ducts of the sweat-glands.
3. n. One of the small interstices between the particles or molecules of the matter of which a body is composed. The compressibility of matter, its expansion and contractiou with changes of temperature, and other considerations lead to the conclusion that even the densest bodies are porous — that is, that the molecules forming them are not in actual contact, but separated by spaces which, though extremely minute, may have a magnitude considerable as compared with their own size.
4. n. In botany, a small aperture or hole, as that at the apex of the anthers in certain Ericaceæ; in Pyrenomycetes, same as ostiole; in Hymenomycetes, same as tubulus. See cut under anther.
5. An obsolete form of pour.
6. An obsolete or dialectal form of poor.
7. n. Minute openings, in the integument of starfishes, through which project the dermal branchiæ.
8. n. In the Cystoidea, a small opening in the plates of the calyx occasionally present between the mouth and the anus. Also called the ovarian aperture.

Wiktionary

1. n. a tiny opening in the skin
2. n. by extension any small opening or interstice, especially one of many or allowing passage of a fluid.
3. v. to study meticulously; to go over again and again.
4. v. to meditate or reflect in a steady way.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One of the minute orifices in an animal or vegetable membrane, for transpiration, absorption, etc.
2. n. A minute opening or passageway; an interstice between the constituent particles or molecules of a body.
3. v. To look or gaze steadily in reading or studying; to fix the attention; to be absorbed; -- often with on or upon, and now usually with over.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any tiny hole admitting passage of a liquid (fluid or gas)
2. n. any small opening in the skin or outer surface of an animal
3. v. direct one's attention on something
4. n. a minute epidermal pore in a leaf or stem through which gases and water vapor can pass