raisin

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A sweet grape dried either in the sun or by artificial means.
2. n. A deep brownish purple.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A cluster of grapes; also, a grape.
2. n. A dried grape of the common Old World species, Vitis vinifera. Only certain saccharine varieties of the grape, however, thriving in special localities, are available for raisins. The larger part of ordinary large raisins are produced on a narrow tract in Mediterranean Spain. These are all sometimes classed as Malaga raisins, but this name belongs more properly to the “dessert-raisins” grown about Malaga: they are also called muscatels from the variety of grape, blooms from retaining a glaucous surface, and, in part at least, raisins of the sun or sun-raisins because dried on the vine, the leaves being removed, and sometimes the cluster-stem half-severed. When packed between sheets of paper, these are known as layer raisins. Raisins suitable for cookery, or “pudding-raisins,” sometimes called lexias, are produced especially at Valencia. These are cured, after cutting from the vine, in the sun, or in bad weather in heated chambers, the quality in the latter case being inferior. The clusters are often dipped in potash lye to soften the skin, favor drying, and impart a gloss. Excluding the “Corinthian raisin” (see below), the next most important source of raisins is the vicinity of Smyrna, including Chesme, near Chios. Here are produced nearly all the sultanas, small seedless raisins with a golden-yellow delicate skin and sweet aromatic flavor. Raisins are also a product of Persia, of Greece, Italy, and southern France, of the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, and California. No variety of native American grape has yet been developed suitable for the preparation of raisins. See raisin-wine.

Wiktionary

1. n. A dried grape.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete A grape, or a bunch of grapes.
2. n. A grape dried in the sun or by artificial heat.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. dried grape