grain

Meaning

Noun

1. (uncountable) The harvested seeds of various grass food crops eg: wheat, corn, barley.
2. (uncountable) Similar seeds from any food crop, e.g., buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa.
3. (countable) A single seed of grass food crops.
4. (countable, uncountable) The crops from which grain is harvested.
5. (uncountable) A linear texture of a material or surface.
6. (countable) A single particle of a substance.
7. (countable, uncountable) Any of various small units of mass originally notionally based on grain's weight, variously standardized at different places and times, including
8. (countable, uncountable) Any of various small units of mass originally notionally based on grain's weight, variously standardized at different places and times, including
9. (countable, historical, uncountable) Any of various small units of mass originally notionally based on grain's weight, variously standardized at different places and times, including
10. (countable, historical) Any of various small units of length originally notionally based on a grain's width, variously standardized at different places and times.
11. (countable, historical) The carat grain of ¹⁄₄ carat as a measure of gold purity, creating a 96-point scale between 0% and 100% purity.
12. (countable, uncountable) A region within a material having a single crystal structure or direction.
13. (countable, uncountable) The solid piece of fuel in an individual solid-fuel rocket engine.
14. (countable, uncountable) A reddish dye made from the coccus insect, or kermes; hence, a red color of any tint or hue, as crimson, scarlet, etc.; sometimes used by the poets as equivalent to Tyrian purple.
15. (countable, uncountable) The hair side of a piece of leather, or the marking on that side.
16. (countable, in-plural, uncountable) The remains of grain, etc., after brewing or distillation; hence, any residuum.
17. (countable, uncountable) A rounded prominence on the back of a sepal, as in the common dock.
18. (countable, uncountable) Temper; natural disposition; inclination.
19. (countable, uncountable) Visual texture in processed photographic film due to the presence of small particles of a metallic silver, or dye clouds, developed from silver halide that have received enough photons.

Verb

1. (transitive) To feed grain to.
2. (transitive) To make granular; to form into grains.
3. (intransitive) To form grains, or to assume a granular form, as the result of crystallization; to granulate.
4. To texture a surface in imitation of the grain of a substance such as wood.
5. To remove the hair or fat from a skin.
6. To soften leather.
7. To yield fruit.

Synonyms

seed

corn

🌽

cereal

kernel

texture

granule

particle

drop

speck

nut

pip

granulate

bit

barley

weave

crumb

cereals

crop

wheat

pellet

feel

fragment

food

🍽️

metric grain

bead

atom

structure

food grain

fruit

gr

provisions

pit

caryopsis

maize

jot

crops

form

tincture

rice

🍚

produce

semen

modicum

millet

morsel

ingrain

scintilla

iota

bean

sperm

gr.

Translations

grain

Korn

grano

grano

grão

graine

gra

Getreide

graan

korrel

céréale

Maserung

noix

granello

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ɡɹeɪn/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: greyn

Inherited from Middle English: grayn

Cognate with English: grove

In summary

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.