sycamore

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various deciduous trees of the genus Platanus, especially P. occidentalis of eastern North America, having palmately lobed leaves, ball-like, nodding, hairy fruit clusters, and bark that flakes off in large colorful patches. Also called buttonball, buttonwood.
2. n. A Eurasian deciduous maple tree (Acer pseudoplatanus) having palmately lobed leaves, winged fruits, and greenish flowers.
3. n. A fig tree (Ficus sycomorus) of Africa and adjacent southwest Asia, mentioned in the Bible, having clusters of figs borne on short leafless twigs.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The sycamore-fig, Ficus Sycomorus, growing in the lowlands of Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere. It is a spreading tree, 30 or 40 feet high, with leaves somewhat like those of the mulberry, and fruit borne in clusters on the trunk and main branches. The fruit is sweetish and edible, though needing an incision at the end to make it ripen properly, and forms a considerable article of food with the poorer classes. The wood is coarse-grained and inferior, but was made into durable mummy-cases. The tree is good for shade, and is still cultivated for that use in Egypt. Sometimes called Egyptian sycamore or Pharaoh's fig.
2. n. In England, the sycamore-maple, Acer Pseudo-platanus, the plane-tree of the Scotch. From its dense shade, it was chosen in the sacred dramas of the middle ages to represent the sycamore (Luke xix. 4) into which Zaccheus climbed (Prior). See maple.
3. n. In the United States, the buttonwood, Platanus occidentalis, or any of the plane-trees. See plane-tree, 1.
4. n. In New South Wales, Sterculia lurida.

Wiktionary

1. n. US Any of several North American plane trees, of the genus Platanus, especially Platanus occidentalis (American sycamore).
2. n. UK A large British and European species of maple, Acer pseudoplatanus, known in North America as the sycamore maple.
3. n. A large tree bearing edible fruit, Ficus sycomorus, allied to the common fig and found in Egypt and Syria; also called the sycamore fig or the fig-mulberry; the Biblical sycomore.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A large tree (Ficus Sycomorus) allied to the common fig. It is found in Egypt and Syria, and is the sycamore, or sycamine, of Scripture.
2. n. The American plane tree, or buttonwood.
3. n. A large European species of maple (Acer Pseudo-Platanus).

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of several trees of the genus Platanus having thin pale bark that scales off in small plates and lobed leaves and ball-shaped heads of fruits
2. n. Eurasian maple tree with pale grey bark that peels in flakes like that of a sycamore tree; leaves with five ovate lobes yellow in autumn
3. n. thick-branched wide-spreading tree of Africa and adjacent southwestern Asia often buttressed with branches rising from near the ground; produces cluster of edible but inferior figs on short leafless twigs; the biblical sycamore
4. n. variably colored and sometimes variegated hard tough elastic wood of a sycamore tree