grain
/ɡɹeɪn/ noun, verb, proper noun
Also a form of groan
Forms grains graining grained grane
- noun (uncountable) The harvested seeds of various grass food crops, especially wheat, maize, rye, barley, and rice. “We stored a thousand tons of grain for the winter.”
- noun (uncountable) Similar seeds from any food crop, e.g., buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa.
- noun (countable) A single seed of a food crop, especially a cereal grass crop. “a grain of wheat”
- noun (countable, uncountable) The crops from which grain is harvested. “The fields were planted with grain.”
- noun (uncountable) A linear texture of a material or surface. “Cut along the grain of the wood.”
- noun (countable) A single particle of a substance. “a grain of sand”
- noun The English grain of ¹⁄₅₇₆₀ troy pound or ¹⁄₇₀₀₀ pound avoirdupois, now exactly 64.79891 mg.
- noun The metric, carat, or pearl grain of ¹⁄₄ carat used for measuring precious stones and pearls, now exactly 50 mg.
- verb (transitive) To feed grain to.
- verb (transitive) To make granular; to form into grains.
- verb (intransitive) To form grains, or to assume a granular form, as the result of crystallization; to granulate.
- verb To texture a surface in imitation of the grain of a substance such as wood.
- verb (tanning) To remove the hair or fat from a skin.
- verb (tanning) To soften leather.
- verb To yield fruit.
- noun A branch of a tree; a stalk or stem of a plant; an offshoot.
- noun One of the branches of a valley or river.
- noun An iron fish spear or harpoon, with a number of points half-barbed inwardly.
- noun A blade of a sword, knife, etc.
- noun An arm of a cross.
Synonyms
cereal corn troy grain draff food grain metric grain caryopsis texture ingrain granulate
Etymology
From Middle English greyn, grayn, grein, from Old French grain, grein, from Latin grānum (“seed”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm (“grain”). Doublet of corn, gram, granum, and grao.
From Middle English grayn, from Old Norse grein (“bough, branch”), from Proto-Germanic *grainiz (“branch, twig, ramification”), of unknown origin. Related to English grove (“thicket”).
Webster’s 1913
- verb See Groan. [Obs.]
- noun A single small hard seed; a kernel, especially of those plants, like wheat, whose seeds are used for food.
- noun The fruit of certain grasses which furnish the chief food of man, as corn, wheat, rye, oats, etc., or the plants themselves; --used collectively.
- verb To paint in imitation of the grain of wood, marble, etc.
Etymology [F. grain, L. granum, grain, seed, small kernel, small particle. See Corn, and cf. Garner, n., Garnet, Gram the chick- pea, Granule, Kernel.]
Etymology [F. grainer, grener. See Grain, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “grain”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details