soap

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

• noun A cleansing agent, manufactured in bars, granules, flakes, or liquid form, made from a mixture of the sodium salts of various fatty acids of natural oils and fats.
• noun A metallic salt of a fatty acid, as of aluminum or iron, that is not water soluble and may be used as a lubricant, thickener, or in various coating applications, ointments, or disinfectants.
• noun Slang Money, especially that which is used for bribery.
• noun A soap opera.
• transitive verb To treat or cover with or as if with soap.
• transitive verb Informal To softsoap; cajole.
• transitive verb Slang To bribe.
• idiom (no soap) Not possible or permissible.
• idiom (no soap) Unsuccessful; futile.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To rub or treat with soap; apply soap to.
• To use smooth words to; flatter.
• In calico-printing, to remove, by means of soap, impurities from (cloth) before bleaching; also, after printing, to remove the thickening used in the color.
• noun The fatty matter obtained by adding just enough acid to a soap solution to cause the separation of the fatty acids.
• noun A chemical compound in common domestic use for washing and cleansing, made by the union of certain fatty acids with a salifiable base.
• noun A kind of pomade for coloring the hair.
• noun Smooth words; persuasion; flattery: more often called soft soap.
• noun Money secretly used for political purposes.
• noun white Castile soap, which contains 21 per cent of water, is of a pale grayish-white color, giving no oily stains to paper, free from rancid odor, and entirely soluble in alcohol or water; and
• noun marbled Castile soap, which is harder and more alkaline, contains 14 per cent. of water, and has veins or streaks of ferruginous matter running through it. Formerly also, erroneously, castle-soap; also Spanish soap.
• noun See def. 3.

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

• noun A substance which dissolves in water, thus forming a lather, and is used as a cleansing agent. Soap is produced by combining fats or oils with alkalies or alkaline earths, usually by boiling, and consists of salts of sodium, potassium, etc., with the fatty acids (oleic, stearic, palmitic, etc.). See the Note below, and cf. saponification. By extension, any compound of similar composition or properties, whether used as a cleaning agent or not.
• noun a fine-grained hard soap, white or mottled, made of olive oil and soda; -- called also Marseilles soap or Venetian soap.
• noun any one of a great variety of soaps, of different ingredients and color, which are hard and compact. All solid soaps are of this class.
• noun an insoluble, white, pliable soap made by saponifying an oil (olive oil) with lead oxide; -- used externally in medicine. Called also lead plaster, diachylon, etc.
• noun See under Marine.
• noun (Med.) pills containing soap and opium.
• noun any soap made with potash, esp. the soft soaps, and a hard soap made from potash and castor oil.
• noun any hard soap charged with a gritty powder, as silica, alumina, powdered pumice, etc., which assists mechanically in the removal of dirt.
• noun a yellow soap containing resin, -- used in bleaching.
• noun a cheap soap containing water glass (sodium silicate).
• noun (Bot.) See Quillaia bark.
• noun a hollow iridescent globe, formed by blowing a film of soap suds from a pipe; figuratively, something attractive, but extremely unsubstantial.
• noun a cerate formed of soap, olive oil, white wax, and the subacetate of lead, sometimes used as an application to allay inflammation.
• noun the refuse fat of kitchens, slaughter houses, etc., used in making soap.
• noun (Med.) a liniment containing soap, camphor, and alcohol.
• noun the hard kernel or seed of the fruit of the soapberry tree, -- used for making beads, buttons, etc.
• noun (Bot.) one of several plants used in the place of soap, as the Chlorogalum pomeridianum, a California plant, the bulb of which, when stripped of its husk and rubbed on wet clothes, makes a thick lather, and smells not unlike new brown soap. It is called also soap apple, soap bulb, and soap weed.
• noun (Bot.) Same as Soapberry tree.
• noun a soap containing a sodium salt. The soda soaps are all hard soaps.
• noun [Colloq.] a soap of a gray or brownish yellow color, and of a slimy, jellylike consistence, made from potash or the lye from wood ashes. It is strongly alkaline and often contains glycerin, and is used in scouring wood, in cleansing linen, in dyehouses, etc. Figuratively, flattery; wheedling; blarney.
• noun hard soap for the toilet, usually colored and perfumed.
• transitive verb To rub or wash over with soap.
• transitive verb Slang To flatter; to wheedle.

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

• noun uncountable A substance able to mix with both oil and water, used for cleaning, often in the form of a solid bar or in liquid form, derived from fats or made synthetically.
• noun countable, informal A soap opera.
• verb transitive To apply soap to in washing.
• verb transitive, informal To cover with soap as a prank.
• verb transitive, informal To be discreet about (a topic).
• verb slang, dated To flatter; to wheedle.