Latex

[ley-teks] /ˈleɪ tɛks/

noun, plural latices
[lat-uh-seez] /ˈlæt əˌsiz/ (Show IPA), latexes.
1.
a milky liquid in certain plants, as milkweeds, euphorbias, poppies, or the plants yielding India rubber, that coagulates on exposure to air.
2.
Chemistry. any emulsion in water of finely divided particles of synthetic rubber or plastic.
/ˈleɪtɛks/
noun (pl) latexes, latices (ˈlætɪˌsiːz)
1.
a whitish milky fluid containing protein, starch, alkaloids, etc, that is produced by many plants. Latex from the rubber tree is used in the manufacture of rubber
2.
a suspension of synthetic rubber or plastic in water, used in the manufacture of synthetic rubber products, etc
n.

1660s, “body fluid,” from Latin latex (genitive laticis) “liquid, fluid,” probably from Greek latax “dregs,” from PIE root *lat- “wet” (cf. Middle Irish laith “beer,” Welsh llaid “mud, mire,” Lithuanian latakas “pool, puddle,” Old Norse leþja “filth”). Used 1835 to mean “milky liquid from plants.” Meaning “water-dispersed polymer particles” (used in rubber goods, paints, etc.) is from 1937. As an adjective by 1954, in place of clasically correct laticiferous.

latex la·tex (lā’těks’)
n.

la’tex’ adj.
latex
(lā’těks’)

language, text, tool
(Lamport TeX) Leslie Lamport [email protected]’s document preparation system built on top of TeX. LaTeX was developed at SRI International’s Computer Science Laboratory and was built to resemble Scribe.
LaTeX adds commands to simplify typesetting and lets the user concentrate on the structure of the text rather than on formatting commands.
BibTeX is a LaTeX package for bibliographic citations.
Lamport’s LaTeX book has an exemplary index listing every symbol, concept and example in the book. The index in the, now obsolete, first edition includes (on page 221) the mysterious entry “Gilkerson, Ellen, 221”. The second edition (1994) has an entry for “infinite loop” instead.
[“LaTeX, A Document Preparation System”, Leslie Lamport, A-W 1986, ISBN 0-201-15790-X (first edition, now obsolete)].
(1997-11-17)