soma

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The entire body of an organism, exclusive of the germ cells.
2. n. See cell body.
3. n. The body of an individual as contrasted with the mind or psyche.
4. n. An intoxicating or hallucinogenic beverage, used as an offering to the Hindu gods and consumed by participants in Vedic ritual sacrifices.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Body. specifically— In anatomy and zoöl, the entire axial part of the body of an animal; the corpus, minus the membra; the head, neck, trunk, and tail, without the limbs.
2. n. In ancient India, a drink having intoxicating properties, expressed from the stems of a certain plant, and playing an important part in sacrifices, being offered especially to the god Indra. It was personified and deified, and worshiped as a god.
3. n. An East Indian plant, the probable source of the beverage soma. It is believed to be of the milkweed family and of the species now classed as Sarcostemma brevistigma (the Asclepias acida of Roxburgh). This is a twining plant, with jointed woody stems of the size of a quill, and numerous succulent branches which are pendulous when unsupported. The flowers are small, greenishwhite, and fragrant, in elegant small umbel-like cymes at the ends of the branchlets. The plant yields a mild acidulous milky juice, which appears to have formed the basis of the drink called soma (see def. 1). The juice of more than one species may have been thus used. The plant grows in dry rocky places in India and Burma. Also called moon-plant (from mythological associations) and swallowwort.
4. n. In later Hind. myth., the moon, or the deity of the moon.
5. n. The body of a multicellular organism as contrasted with its germ-cells.

Wiktionary

1. n. anatomy The whole axial portion of an animal, including the head, neck, trunk, and tail.
2. n. cytology The bulbous part of a neuron, containing the cell nucleus.
3. n. A ritual drink in ancient Vedic and Persian cultures, dating to common Indo-Iranian period.
4. n. by extension any kind of intoxicating drug

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Anat.) The whole axial portion of an animal, including the head, neck, trunk, and tail.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. leafless East Indian vine; its sour milky juice formerly used to make an intoxicating drink
2. n. personification of a sacred intoxicating drink used in Vedic ritual
3. n. alternative names for the body of a human being