See Also:

oak (iou)



oak noun & adjective.

A. noun.
Any of numerous trees (rarely shrubs) of the genus Quercus, of the beech family, with acorns borne in cupules and freq. with sinuately lobed leaves; spec. (more fully common oak, English oak, pedunculate oak) Q. robur and (more fully durmast oak, sessile oak) Q. petraea. Also oak tree. OE.
kermes oak, live oak, quercitron oak, robur-oak, etc.
The timber of the oak, an important building material, esp. for ships. Freq. in allusive phrases with ref. to its hardness and durability. LME.
b. A wooden outer door, usu. of university rooms. Chiefly in sport one's oak, shut this door as a sign that one does not wish to be disturbed. colloq. L18.
c. Furniture or domestic fittings made of oak. E19.
In certain biblical translations: the terebinth tree, Pistacia terebinthus. LME.
The leaves of the oak, esp. as worn in wreaths. LME.
b. A shade of brown like that of a young oak-leaf. L19.
Any of various trees resembling the English oak or having wood similarly grained; esp. = CASUARINA. Cf. SHE-OAK. Austral. L18.
native oak: see NATIVE adjective. silky oak: see SILKY adjective 4.
The taste, flavour, or aroma imparted to wine by the use of oak casks, usu. characterized as coconut-like or vanillic. L20.
C. Clark A monster wine with..lots of spicy oak.
Other phrases: heart of oak: see HEART noun. lungs of oak, lungs of the oak: see LUNG. oak of Jerusalem an aromatic goosefoot, Chenopodium botrys, with oaklike leaves. poison oak: see POISON noun, adjective, & adverb. royal oak: see ROYAL adjective. the Oaks [from the name of an estate near Epsom] an annual horse-race for three-year-old fillies run at Epsom on the Friday after the Derby.
b. adjective. Made of, decorated with, or resembling the wood of the oak. M17.
Comb. & special collocations: oak-apple a globular spongy gall formed on the leaves and stems of the oak by the gall-wasp Biorhiza pallida; oak-apple day, the anniversary of Charles II's restoration (29 May), when oak-apples or oak-leaves used to be worn in memory of his hiding in an oak after the battle of Worcester; Oak-boy a member of an Irish rebel society of the 1760s, whose badge was an oak-sprig worn in the hat; oak cist, oak coffin Archaeology a coffin made from a split and hollowed oak log, used in Bronze-Age Europe; oak EGGAR; oak fern (a) the polypody Polypodium vulgare, regarded as specially efficacious against disease when epiphytic on the oak; (b) a fern of rocky or mountainous woods, Gymnocarpium dryopteris; oak-fly Angling (an artificial fly imitating) a long-legged yellowish dipteran fly, Rhagio scolopacea; oak-gall a gall on an oak, esp. one of a rounded form; oak land (chiefly US) land bearing a growth of oak trees; oak leaf (a) a leaf of an oak tree; (b) a red or green variety of lettuce which has leaves with serrated edges and a slightly bitter taste; oak moss a tree-lichen, Evernia prunastri, found on oaks and used as a basis for perfumes; oak-opening a clearing or thinly wooded space in an oak forest; oak-pruner = twig-pruner s.v. TWIG noun1; oak-spangle a kind of flat gall caused by some gall-flies on the underside of oak-leaves; oaktag = tagboard (a) s.v. TAG noun1; oak tree: see sense 1 above; oak-web dial. a cockchafer; oak wilt US a disease of oaks etc. caused by the fungus Ceratocystis fagacearum, which makes the foliage wilt and eventually kills the tree; oak-wood (a) the wood or timber of the oak; (b) a wood or forest consisting of oaks; oak-worm any of various moth caterpillars that live on oaks.
oaklet noun L19.
oaklike adjective resembling (that of) an oak M19.
oaky adjective M17.