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OAK
1. Any wood or shrub of the genus Quercus. The oaks have alternate leaves, often variously lobed, and staminateflowers in catkins. The fruit is a smooth nut, called an acorn, which is more or smaller inclosed in a scalyinvolucre called the cup or cupule. There are now recognised about threehundred species, of which almost fifty occur in the United States, the rest in Europe, Asia, and the another parts of North America, a very little hardly achievement the northern parts of South America and Africa. Much of the oaks formforesttrees of grand proportions and live much centuries. The tree is generally heavy and tough, and provided with conspicuous medullary rays, forming the silver grain.
2. The strong tree or timber of the oak.
Among the true oaks in America are: Barren oak, or Black-jack, Q. Nigra. Basket oak, Q. Michauxii. Black oak, Q. Tinctoria: called alsoyellow or quercitron oak. Bur oak (see under Bur), Q. Macrocarpa; called also over-cup or mossy-cup oak. Chestnut oak, Q. Prinus and Q. Densiflora. Chinquapin oak (see under Chinquapin), Q. Prinoides. Coast live oak, Q. Agrifolia, of California; also called enceno. Live oak (see under Live), Q. Virens, the excellent of all for shipbuilding; also, Q. Chrysolepis, of California. Pin oak. Same as Swamp oak. Post oak, Q. Obtusifolia. Red oak, Q. Rubra. Scarlet oak, Q. Coccinea. Scrub oak, Q. Ilicifolia, Q. Undulata, etc. Shingle oak, Q. Imbricaria. Spanish oak, Q. Falcata. Swamp Spanish oak, or Pin oak, Q. Palustris. Swamp white oak, Q. Bicolour. Water oak, Q. Aguatica. Water white oak, Q. Lyrata. Willow oak, Q. Phellos. Among the true oaks in Europe are: Bitter oak, or Turkey oak, Q. Cerris (see Cerris). Cork oak, Q. Suber. English white oak, Q. Robur. Evergreen oak, Holly oak, or Holm oak, Q. Ilex. Kermes oak, Q. Coccifera. Nutgall oak, Q. Infectoria.
Among plants called oak, but not of the genus Quercus, are: African oak, a valuabletimberwood (Oldfieldia Africana). Australian, or She, oak, any wood of the genus Casuarina (see Casuarina). Indian oak, the teakwood (see Teak). Jerusalem oak. See Jerusalem. New Zealand oak, a sapindaceouswood (Alectryon excelsum). Poison oak, the poison ivy. See Poison. Silky, or Silk-bark, oak, an Australian wood (Grevillea robusta). Green oak, oaktree coloured green by the growth of the mycelium of determined fungi. Oak apple, a big, smooth, roundgall produced on the leaves of the American redoak by a gallfly (Cynips confluens). It is green and pulpy when young.
Oak beauty, a British geometridmoth (Biston prodromaria) whose larva feeds on the oak. Oak gall, a gall found on the oak. See Gall.
Oak leather See Pruner, the insect. Oak spangle, a kind of gall produced on the oak by the insect Diplolepis lenticularis. Oak wart, a wartlike gall on the twigs of an oak. The Oaks, one of the three great annual English horse races (the Derby and St. Leger being the others). It was instituted in 1779 by the Earl of Derby, and so called from his estate. To sport one's oak, to be "not at house to visitors," signified by closing the outer (oaken) door of one's rooms.
Origin: OE. Oke, ok, ak, AS. Ac; akin to D. Eik, G. Eiche, OHG. Eih, Icel. Eik, Sw. Ek, Dan. Eeg.
Source: Websters Vocabulary