receptacle

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

• noun A container that holds items or matter.
• noun Botany The expanded tip of a flower stalk or axis that bears the floral parts or the florets of the flower head.
• noun Electronics A fitting connected to a power supply and equipped to receive a plug.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun That which receives or holds anything for rest or deposit; a storing-place; a repository; a container; any space, open or closed, that serves for reception and keeping.
• noun In botany:
• noun In a single flower, the more or less enlarged and peculiarly developed apex of the peduncle or pedicel, upon which all the organs of the flower are directly or indirectly borne: the Linnæan and usual name: same as the more specific and proper torus of De Candolle and the thalamus of Tournefort.
• noun In an inflorescence, the axis or rachis of a head or other short dense cluster; most often. the expanded disk-like summit of the peduncle in Compositæ (dandelion, etc.) on which are borne the florets of the head, surrounded by an involucre of bracts; a clinanthium. In contrast with the above, sometimes called common receptacle.
• noun In an ovary, same as placenta. 4.
• noun Among cryptogams
• noun In the vascular class, the placenta.
• noun In Marchantiaceæ, one of the umbrella-like branches of the thallus, upon which the reproductive organs are borne.
• noun In Fucaceæ, a part of the thallus in which conceptacles (see conceptacle) are congregated. They are either terminal portions of branches or parts sustained above water by air-bladders.
• noun In Fungi, sometimes same as stroma; in Ascomycetes, same as pycnidium, 1 (also the stalk of a discocarp); in Phalloideæ, the inner part of the sporophore, supporting the gleba.
• noun In lichens, the cup containing the soredia. The term has some other analogous applications.
• noun In zoology and anatomy, a part or an organ which receives and contains or detains a secretion; a receptaculum: as, the gall-bladder is the receptacle of the bile.

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

• noun That which serves, or is used, for receiving and containing something, as for examople, a basket, a vase, a bag, a reservoir; a repository.
• noun The apex of the flower stalk, from which the organs of the flower grow, or into which they are inserted. See Illust. of Flower, and Ovary.
• noun The dilated apex of a pedicel which serves as a common support to a head of flowers.
• noun An intercellular cavity containing oil or resin or other matters.
• noun A special branch which bears the fructification in many cryptogamous plants.

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

• noun A container.
• noun botany The part of the flower stalk (peduncle or pedicel) to which the floral parts are attached; also torus.
• noun electricity, US A contact device installed at an outlet for the connection of an attachment plug and flexible cord to supply portable equipment or appliances.

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

• noun an electrical (or electronic) fitting that is connected to a source of power and equipped to receive an insert
• noun a container that is used to put or keep things in
• noun enlarged tip of a stem that bears the floral parts