manna Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun hardened sugary exudation of various trees
  2. noun (Old Testament) food that God gave the Israelites during the Exodus
    manna from heaven; miraculous food.

WordNet

Man"na noun
Etymology
L., fr. Gr. , Heb. man; cf. Ar. mann, properly, gift (of heaven).
Definitions
  1. (Script.) The food supplied to the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness of Arabia; hence, divinely supplied food. Ex. xvi. 15.
  2. (Bot.) A name given to lichens of the genus Lecanora, sometimes blown into heaps in the deserts of Arabia and Africa, and gathered and used as food.
  3. (Bot. & Med.) A sweetish exudation in the form of pale yellow friable flakes, coming from several trees and shrubs and used in medicine as a gentle laxative, as the secretion of Fraxinus Ornus, and F. rotundifolia, the manna ashes of Southern Europe. ✍ Persian manna is the secretion of the camel's thorn (see Camel's thorn, under Camel); Tamarisk manna, that of the Tamarisk mannifera, a shrub of Western Asia; Australian, manna, that of certain species of eucalyptus; Briançon manna, that of the European larch.

Webster 1913