The DICT Development Group

  Latex \La"tex\, n. [L.]
     1. (Bot.) A milky or colored juice in certain plants in
        cavities (called latex cells or latex tubes). It contains
        the peculiar principles of the plants, whether aromatic,
        bitter, or acid, and in many instances yields caoutchouc
        upon coagulation. The lattex of the India rubber plant
        produces the rubber of commerce on coagulation.
        [1913 Webster +PJC]
  
     2. (Chem.) Any aqueous emulsion of finely divided rubber or
        plastic particles, especially such an emulsion used as a
        base for paint; as, a latex paint.
        [PJC]

  latex
       n 1: a milky exudate from certain plants that coagulates on
            exposure to air
       2: a water-base paint having a latex binder [syn: latex paint,
           rubber-base paint]
       [also: latices (pl)]

  LaTeX
       
           (Lamport TeX) Leslie Lamport
          '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)