vein

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Anatomy Any of the membranous tubes that form a branching system and carry blood to the heart from the cells, tissues, and organs of the body.
• noun A blood vessel of any kind; a vein or artery.
• noun Botany One of the strands of vascular tissue that form the conducting and supporting framework in a leaf or other expanded plant organ.
• noun Zoology One of the thickened cuticular ribs that form the supporting network of the wing of an insect and that often carry hemolymph.
• noun Geology A regularly shaped and lengthy occurrence of an ore; a lode.
• noun A long wavy strip of a different shade or color, as in wood or marble, or as mold in cheese.
• noun A fissure, crack, or cleft.
• noun A pervading character or quality; a streak.
• noun A transient attitude or mood.
• noun A particular turn of mind.
• transitive verb To supply or fill with veins.
• transitive verb To mark or decorate with veins.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To fill or furnish with veins; cover with veins; streak or variegate with or as with veins.
• noun In anatomy, one of a set of blood-vessels conveying blood from the periphery to the physiological center of the circulation; one of a set of membranous canals or tubes distributed in nearly all the tissues and organs of the body, for the purpose of carrying blood from these parts to the heart.
• noun Loosely, any blood-vessel.
• noun In entomology, one of the ribs or horny tubes which form the frame work of the wings of an insect, and between which the thin membrane of the wings is spread and supported; a nervure.
• noun In botany, a fibrovascular bundle at or near the surface of a leaf, sepal, petal, etc.: same as nerve, 7. See nervation.
• noun In mining, an occurrence of ore. usually disseminated through a gangue or veinstone, and having a more or less regular development in length, width, and depth.
• noun A cavity, fissure, or cleft, as in the earth or other substance.
• noun A streak, stripe, or marking, of different color or shade, as in natural marble or wood cut so as to show the grain, or glass in which different colors have been melted irregularly. The term is applied either to a long and nearly regular stripe, or to a much broken and contorted one, returning upon itself. Also called veining.
• noun A streak; a part of anything marked off from the rest by some distinctive character; hence, a distinct property or characteristic considered as running through or being intermingled with others; a continued strain.
• noun Manner of speech or action; particular style, character, disposition, or cast of mind.
• noun Particular mood, temper, humor, or disposition for the time being.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To form or mark with veins; to fill or cover with veins.
• noun (Anat.) One of the vessels which carry blood, either venous or arterial, to the heart. See artery, 2.
• noun (Bot.) One of the similar branches of the framework of a leaf.
• noun (Zoöl.) One of the ribs or nervures of the wings of insects. See Venation.
• noun (Geol. or Mining) A narrow mass of rock intersecting other rocks, and filling inclined or vertical fissures not corresponding with the stratification; a lode; a dike; -- often limited, in the language of miners, to a mineral vein or lode, that is, to a vein which contains useful minerals or ores.
• noun A fissure, cleft, or cavity, as in the earth or other substance.
• noun A streak or wave of different color, appearing in wood, and in marble and other stones; variegation.
• noun A train of associations, thoughts, emotions, or the like; a current; a course.
• noun Peculiar temper or temperament; tendency or turn of mind; a particular disposition or cast of genius; humor; strain; quality; also, manner of speech or action.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun anatomy A blood vessel that transports blood from the capillaries back to the heart
• noun The entrails of a shrimp
• noun botany In leaves, a thickened portion of the leaf containing the vascular bundle
• noun zoology The nervure of an insect’s wing
• noun A stripe or streak of a different colour or composition in materials such as wood, cheese, marble or other rocks
• noun A topic of discussion
• noun A style, tendency, or quality of something

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun one of the horny ribs that stiffen and support the wing of an insect
• verb make a veinlike pattern
• noun a layer of ore between layers of rock
• noun any of the vascular bundles or ribs that form the branching framework of conducting and supporting tissues in a leaf or other plant organ
• noun a distinctive style or manner
• noun a blood vessel that carries blood from the capillaries toward the heart