Definition of oak

What does the word oak mean?

• part of speech: noun

  Kinds of tree& shrub, of which the best known is a forest tree yielding hard timber& acorns& having jagged leaves (Dyer\'s, Holm, Scarlet, &c., o., other species; Dwarf, Ground, &c., o., plants named from some resemblance to o.); wood of the o. (HEART of o.), (poet.) wooden ships; (Univv.) outer door of set of rooms (sport one\'s o., shut this to exclude visitors); leaves of o. (o. is still worn on 29th May); colour of young o. leaves; the Oaks, race at Epsom for three-year-old fillies; (attrib., =, but now more usual than) oaken; o.-apple, -fig, -gall, -plum, -potato, -spangle, -wart, kinds of excrescence produced on oo. by gall-flies; o.-apple day, 29th May on which o.-aa. are worn as anniversary of ROYALO. incident; o.-beauty, -egger, -hooktip, -lappet, -moth, kinds of moth bred on or resembling leaf &c. of o.; o.-fern, smooth three-branched Polypody; o.-tree, o.; o.-wood, forest, copse, &c., of oo., also o. timber. Hence oaken a., oaklet, oakling (2), nn. [old English]