Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Latex \La"tex\, n. [L.] (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.

Source : WordNet®

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)]

Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

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)