tube

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A hollow cylinder, especially one that conveys a fluid or functions as a passage.
2. n. An organic structure having the shape or function of a tube; a duct: a bronchial tube.
3. n. A small flexible cylindrical container sealed at one end and having a screw cap at the other, for pigments, toothpaste, or other pastelike substances.
4. n. Music The cylindrical part of a wind instrument.
5. n. Electronics An electron tube.
6. n. Electronics A vacuum tube.
7. n. Botany The lower, cylindrical part of a gamopetalous corolla or a gamosepalous calyx.
8. n. Chiefly British An underground railroad tunnel.
9. n. Chiefly British An underground railroad system, especially the one in London, England.
10. n. A tunnel.
11. n. An inner tube.
12. n. An inflatable tube or cushion made of rubber or plastic and used for recreational riding, as behind a motor boat or down a snow-covered slope.
13. n. Informal Television: What's on the tube?
14. n. Informal A television set.
15. n. Informal The fallopian tubes.
16. v. To provide with a tube; insert a tube in.
17. v. To place in or enclose in a tube.
18. v. To ride or float on an inflated tube for recreation.
19. idiom. tubes Slang Into a state of failure or ruin: saw her plans go down the tubes.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A city subway in the form of tunnel.
2. A pipe or hollow cylinder, especially when of small size and used as a conduit for liquids, or for containing liquids, as in some forms of scientific apparatus. Mechanically there is no distinction between a pipe and a tube; but in use the two words are often somewhat arbitrarily distinguished. Thus, when the form of the thing is chiefly considered, tube is regularly used; as, a steam-boiler having the shape of a large tube—not pipe; so, also, with reference to certain mechanical uses one word or the other is exclusively used: as, a gas-pipe, a drain-pipe, a test-tube. The words are also distinguished in use, but less clearly, according to the material employed: as, an iron pipe, a rubber tube, a brass tube, etc.
3. Specifically, the main body of a musical instrument of either the wood wind or the brass wind group. The bore of such instruments is usually conical, but sometimes cylindrical.
4. In anatomy and zoology, a hollow tubular organ; a pipe, canal, or duct conveying fluid or gas; especially, a pipe which seems to be empty—that is, conveys air: as, the bronchial tubes; the Eustachian tube. An artery or a vein is a tube, but nearly if not all the structures which convey special fluids receive distinctive names, see tuba, tubule.
5. In botany, any hollow elongated body or part of an organ: applied especially to a gamopet-alous corolla or gamosepalous calyx, also to a united circle of stamens (see cut 9 under stamen).
6. A priming-tube.
7. A telescope, or that part of it into which the lenses are fitted.
8. The barrel of a chain-pump.
9. A small receptacle of drawn lead, of approximately tubular form, closed at the bottom by bending it over twice or three times on itself, and having a screw-cap at the top, used to hold pigments or similar matter in a semifluid condition.
10. To furnish with a tube or tubes.
11. To receive or inclose in a tube.

Wiktionary

1. n. Anything that is hollow and cylindrical in shape.
2. n. An approximately cylindrical container, usually with a crimped end and a screw top, used to contain and dispense semi-liquid substances.
3. n. UK, colloquial The London Underground railway system, originally referred to the lower level lines that ran in tubular tunnels as opposed to the higher ones which ran in rectangular section tunnels. (Often the tube.)
4. n. Australia, slang A tin can containing beer (or other beverage?).
5. n. surfing A wave which pitches forward when breaking, creating a hollow space inside.
6. n. North America, colloquial A television. Also, derisively, boob tube. British: telly
7. v. To make or use tubes

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A hollow cylinder, of any material, used for the conveyance of fluids, and for various other purposes; a pipe.
2. n. A telescope.
3. n. A vessel in animal bodies or plants, which conveys a fluid or other substance.
4. n. (Bot.) The narrow, hollow part of a gamopetalous corolla.
5. n. (Gun.) A priming tube, or friction primer. See under Priming, and Friction.
6. n. (Steam Boilers) A small pipe forming part of the boiler, containing water and surrounded by flame or hot gases, or else surrounded by water and forming a flue for the gases to pass through.
7. n. A more or less cylindrical, and often spiral, case secreted or constructed by many annelids, crustaceans, insects, and other animals, for protection or concealment. See Illust. of Tubeworm.
8. n. One of the siphons of a bivalve mollusk.
9. n. (Elec. Railways), Chiefly Eng. A tunnel for a tube railway; also (Colloq.), a tube railway; a subway.
10. v. To furnish with a tube.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. provide with a tube or insert a tube into
2. n. (anatomy) any hollow cylindrical body structure
3. v. ride or float on an inflated tube
4. v. convey in a tube
5. n. conduit consisting of a long hollow object (usually cylindrical) used to hold and conduct objects or liquids or gases
6. n. a hollow cylindrical shape
7. n. an electric railway operating below the surface of the ground (usually in a city)
8. v. place or enclose in a tube
9. n. electronic device consisting of a system of electrodes arranged in an evacuated glass or metal envelope