soap

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A cleansing agent, manufactured in bars, granules, flakes, or liquid form, made from a mixture of the sodium salts of various fatty acids of natural oils and fats.
2. n. A metallic salt of a fatty acid, as of aluminum or iron.
3. n. Slang Money, especially that which is used for bribery.
4. n. A soap opera.
5. v. To treat or cover with or as if with soap.
6. v. Informal To softsoap; cajole.
7. v. Slang To bribe.
8. idiom. no soap Slang Not possible or permissible.
9. idiom. no soap Slang Unsuccessful; futile.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A chemical compound in common domestic use for washing and cleansing, made by the union of certain fatty acids with a salifiable base. Fats and fixed oils consist of fatty acids combined with glycerin. On treating them with a strong base, like potash or soda, glycerin is set free, and the fatty acid combines with the strong base and forms a soap. Soap is of two kinds—soluble soap, in which the base is potash, soda, or ammonia, and insoluble soap, whose base is an earth or a metallic oxid. Only the soluble soaps dissolve readily in water and have detergent qualities. Insoluble soaps are used only in pharmacy for liniments or plasters. Of the fats, stearates make the hardest, oleates the softest soaps; and of the bases, soda makes the hardest and least soluble, and potash the softest and most soluble. Perfumes are occasionally added, or various coloring matters are stirred in while the soap is semi-fluid. White soaps are generally made of olive-oil and soda. Common household soaps are made chiefly of soda and tallow. Yellow soap is composed of tallow, rosin, and soda, to which some palm-oil is occasionally added. (See rosin-soap.) Mottled soap is made by simply adding mineral and other colors during the manufacture of ordinary hard soap. Marine soap, known as salt-water soap, which has the property of dissolving as well in salt water as in fresh, is made of palm- or cocoanut-oil and soda. Soft soaps are made with potash, instead of soda, and whale-, seal-, or olive-oil, or the oils of linseed, hemp-seed, rape-seed, etc., with the addition of a little tallow. Excellent soaps are made from palm-oil and soda. A solution of soap in alcohol, with camphor and a little essential oil added to scent it, forms a soft ointment called opodeldoc, now superseded by soap-liniment, a similar preparation, which is liquid. Medicinal soap, when pure, is prepared from caustic soda and either olive- or almond-oil. It is chiefiy employed to form pills of a gently aperient antacid action.
2. n. A kind of pomade for coloring the hair.
3. n. Smooth words; persuasion; flattery: more often called soft soap.
4. n. Money secretly used for political purposes.
5. n. white Castile soap, which contains 21 per cent of water, is of a pale grayish-white color, giving no oily stains to paper, free from rancid odor, and entirely soluble in alcohol or water; and.
6. n. marbled Castile soap, which is harder and more alkaline, contains 14 per cent. of water, and has veins or streaks of ferruginous matter running through it. Formerly also, erroneously, castle-soap; also Spanish soap.
7. n. See def. 3.
8. To rub or treat with soap; apply soap to.
9. To use smooth words to; flatter.
10. n. The fatty matter obtained by adding just enough acid to a soap solution to cause the separation of the fatty acids.
11. In calico-printing, to remove, by means of soap, impurities from (cloth) before bleaching; also, after printing, to remove the thickening used in the color.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable A substance able to mix with both oil and water, used for cleaning, often in the form of solid bar or in liquid form, derived from fats or made synthetically.
2. n. countable, informal A soap opera.
3. v. transitive To apply soap to in washing.
4. v. transitive, informal To cover with soap as a prank.
5. v. transitive, informal To be discreet about (a topic).
6. v. slang, dated To flatter; to wheedle.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A substance which dissolves in water, thus forming a lather, and is used as a cleansing agent. Soap is produced by combining fats or oils with alkalies or alkaline earths, usually by boiling, and consists of salts of sodium, potassium, etc., with the fatty acids (oleic, stearic, palmitic, etc.). See the Note below, and cf. saponification. By extension, any compound of similar composition or properties, whether used as a cleaning agent or not.
2. v. To rub or wash over with soap.
3. v. Slang To flatter; to wheedle.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. street names for gamma hydroxybutyrate
2. v. rub soap all over, usually with the purpose of cleaning
3. n. a cleansing agent made from the salts of vegetable or animal fats
4. n. money offered as a bribe