vessel

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A hollow utensil, such as a cup, vase, or pitcher, used as a container, especially for liquids.
2. n. Nautical A craft, especially one larger than a rowboat, designed to navigate on water.
3. n. An airship.
4. n. Anatomy A duct, canal, or other tube that contains or conveys a body fluid: a blood vessel.
5. n. Botany One of the tubular conductive structures of xylem, consisting of dead cylindrical cells that are attached end to end and connected by perforations. They are found in nearly all flowering plants.
6. n. A person seen as the agent or embodiment, as of a quality: a vessel of mercy.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A utensil for holding liquors and other things, as a cask, a barrel, a bottle, a kettle, a pot, a cup, or a dish.
2. n. Specifically, In metallurgy, the converter in which Bessemer steel is made. See steel.
3. n. A ship; a craft of any kind: usually a larger craft than a boat, but in law often construed to mean any floating structure.
4. n. In anatomy and zoology, any duct or canal in which a fluid, as blood or lymph, is secreted, contained, or conveyed, as an artery, vein, capillary, lymphatic, or spermatic; especially, a blood-vessel. A part or organ pervaded or well provided with vessels is said to be vascular.
5. n. In botany, same as duct—that is, a row of cells which have lost their intervening partitions, and consequently form a long continuous canal. The walls of the vessel or duct may be variously marked by pits, or by spiral, annular, or reticulated thickenings.
6. n. Figuratively, something conceived as formed to receive or contain; hence, especially in Scriptural phraseology, a person into whom anything is conceived as poured or infused, or to whom something has been imparted; a recipient.
7. n. Vessels collectively; plate.
8. n. See the adjectives.
9. To put into a vessel.

Wiktionary

1. n. nautical A general term for all kinds of craft designed for transportation on water, such as ships or boats.
2. n. A container of liquid, such as a glass, goblet, cup, bottle, bowl, or pitcher
3. n. A person as a container of qualities or feelings.
4. n. biology A tube or canal that carries fluid in an animal or plant.
5. v. obsolete, transitive To put into a vessel.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A hollow or concave utensil for holding anything; a hollow receptacle of any kind, as a hogshead, a barrel, a firkin, a bottle, a kettle, a cup, a bowl, etc.
2. n. A general name for any hollow structure made to float upon the water for purposes of navigation; especially, one that is larger than a common rowboat
3. n. Fig.: A person regarded as receiving or containing something; esp. (Script.), one into whom something is conceived as poured, or in whom something is stored for use.
4. n. (Anat.) Any tube or canal in which the blood or other fluids are contained, secreted, or circulated, as the arteries, veins, lymphatics, etc.
5. n. (Bot.) A continuous tube formed from superposed large cylindrical or prismatic cells (tracheæ), which have lost their intervening partitions, and are usually marked with dots, pits, rings, or spirals by internal deposition of secondary membranes; a duct.
6. v. obsolete To put into a vessel.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a craft designed for water transportation
2. n. an object used as a container (especially for liquids)
3. n. a tube in which a body fluid circulates