n. [ AS. palm, L. palma; -- so named fr. the leaf resembling a hand. See 1st Palm, and cf. Pam. ] [ 1913 Webster ]
☞ Palms are perennial woody plants, often of majestic size. The trunk is usually erect and rarely branched, and has a roughened exterior composed of the persistent bases of the leaf stalks. The leaves are borne in a terminal crown, and are supported on stout, sheathing, often prickly, petioles. They are usually of great size, and are either pinnately or palmately many-cleft. There are about one thousand species known, nearly all of them growing in tropical or semitropical regions. The wood, petioles, leaves, sap, and fruit of many species are invaluable in the arts and in domestic economy. Among the best known are the date palm, the cocoa palm, the fan palm, the oil palm, the wax palm, the palmyra, and the various kinds called cabbage palm and palmetto. [ 1913 Webster ]
A great multitude . . . stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palme in their hands. Rev. vii. 9. [ 1913 Webster ]
So get the start of the majestic world
And bear the palm alone. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]
Molucca palm (Bot.),
Palm cabbage,
Palm cat (Zool.),
Palm crab (Zool.),
Palm oil,
Palm swift (Zool.),
Palm toddy.
Palm weevil (Zool.),
Palm wine,
Palm worm,
Palmworm
v. t.
They palmed the trick that lost the game. Prior. [ 1913 Webster ]
For you may palm upon us new for old. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]
n. [ OE. paume, F. paume, L. palma, Gr.
Clench'd her fingers till they bit the palm. Tennyson. [ 1913 Webster ]
☞ In Greece, the palm was reckoned at three inches. The Romans adopted two measures of this name, the lesser palm of 2.91 inches, and the greater palm of 8.73 inches. At the present day, this measure varies in the most arbitrary manner, being different in each country, and occasionally varying in the same. Internat. Cyc. [ 1913 Webster ]
to grease the palm of, v. t.
n. A natural family of chiefly tropical trees and shrubs and vines usually having a tall columnar trunk bearing a crown of very large leaves; coextensive with the order
a. (Bot.) Of or pertaining to palms; of the nature of, or resembling, palms. [ 1913 Webster ]
‖ [ L., palm of Christ. ] (Bot.) A plant (Ricinus communis) with ornamental peltate and palmately cleft foliage, growing as a woody perennial in the tropics, and cultivated as an herbaceous annual in temperate regions; -- called also
n. (Paleon.) A fossil palm. [ 1913 Webster ]
prop. n. A natural family of chiefly tropical trees and shrubs; same as Palmaceae; coextensive with the order
prop. n. A natural family of chiefly tropical trees and shrubs coextensive with the family
a. [ L. palmaris, fr. palma the palm of the hand: cf. F. palmaire. ]