'Sap ball' definitions:

Definition of 'Sap ball'

From: GCIDE
  • Sap \Sap\, n. [AS. saep; akin to OHG. saf, G. saft, Icel. safi; of uncertain origin; possibly akin to L. sapere to taste, to be wise, sapa must or new wine boiled thick. Cf. Sapid, Sapient.]
  • 1. The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition. [1913 Webster]
  • Note: The ascending is the crude sap, the assimilation of which takes place in the leaves, when it becomes the elaborated sap suited to the growth of the plant. [1913 Webster]
  • 2. The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree. [1913 Webster]
  • 3. A simpleton; a saphead; a milksop. [Slang] [1913 Webster]
  • Sap ball (Bot.), any large fungus of the genus Polyporus. See Polyporus.
  • Sap green, a dull light green pigment prepared from the juice of the ripe berries of the Rhamnus catharticus, or buckthorn. It is used especially by water-color artists.
  • Sap rot, the dry rot. See under Dry.
  • Sap sucker (Zool.), any one of several species of small American woodpeckers of the genus Sphyrapicus, especially the yellow-bellied woodpecker ({Sphyrapicus varius}) of the Eastern United States. They are so named because they puncture the bark of trees and feed upon the sap. The name is loosely applied to other woodpeckers.
  • Sap tube (Bot.), a vessel that conveys sap. [1913 Webster]