n. An apparatus, usually of an umbrella shape, 20 or 30 feet in diameter, carried in a balloon, that the aëronaut may by its aid drop to the ground without sustaining injury.n. A safety-cage (which see).n. In zoology, same as patagium.n. A broad-brimmed hat worn by women toward the close of the eighteenth century.To descend by or as if by the aid of a parachute.n. A large funnel of tinned copper set in the skimming-vat of a brewery, the mouth on a level with the surface of the beer, used to receive and carry off the yeast which is skimmed into it by means of a plank paddle.n. In botany, a down or tuft of hairs attached to a seed enabling it to float in the air as if supported by a parachute: most properly, a tuft supported by a long beak as in the dandelion (see pappus, cut a), but also applied more broadly. Often adjectival, as in the phrases parachute mechanisms, parachute seeds, etc.