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)