grain
pronunciation
How to pronounce grain in British English:
UK [ɡreɪn]
How to pronounce grain in American English:
US [ɡreɪn]
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- Noun:
- a small hard particle
- foodstuff prepared from the starchy grains of cereal grasses
- used for pearls or diamonds: 50 mg or 1/4 carat
- 1/60 dram; equals an avoirdupois grain or 6799 milligrams
- 1/7000 pound; equals a troy grain or 64.799 milligrams
- dry seedlike fruit produced by the cereal grasses: e.g. wheat, barley, Indian corn
- the direction or texture of fibers found in wood or leather or stone or in a woven fabric
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- Verb:
- thoroughly work in
- paint (a surface) to make it look like stone or wood
- form into grains
- become granular
Word Origin
- grain
- grain: [13] Grain comes via Old French from Latin grānum ‘seed’. Its prehistoric Indo- European ancestor was *grnóm, literally ‘worndown particle’, which also produced English corn, and it has given English a remarkably wide range of related forms: not just obvious derivatives like granary [16], granule [17], and ingrained [16], but also garner [12] (originally a noun derived from Latin grānārium ‘granary’), gram ‘chick-pea’ [18] (from the Portuguese descendant of grānum, now mainly encountered in ‘gram flour’), grange, granite, gravy, grenade, and the second halves of filigree and pomegranate.=> filigree, garner, granary, granite, gravy, grenade, ingrained, pomegranate
- grain (n.)
- early 14c., "a small, hard seed," especially of one of the cereal plants, also as a collective singular, "seed of wheat and allied grasses used as food;" also "something resembling grain; a hard particle of other substances" (salt, sand, later gunpowder, etc.), from Old French grain, grein (12c.) "seed, grain; particle, drop; berry; grain as a unit of weight," from Latin granum "seed, a grain, small kernel," from PIE root *gre-no- "grain" (see corn (n.1)). From late 14c. as "a species of cereal plant." In the U.S., where corn has a specialized sense, it is the general word (used of wheat, rye, oats, barley, etc.). Figuratively, "the smallest possible quantity," from late 14c. From early 15c. in English as the smallest unit of weight (originally the weight of a plump, dry grain of wheat or barley from the middle of the ear). From late 14c as "roughness of surface; a roughness as of grains." In reference to wood, "quality due to the character or arrangement of its fibers," 1560s; hence, against the grain (1650), a metaphor from carpentry: cutting across the fibers of the wood is more difficult than cutting along them. Earliest sense of the word in English was "scarlet dye made from insects" (early 13c.), a sense also in the Old French collateral form graine; see kermes for the evolution of this sense, which was frequent in Middle English; also compare engrain. In Middle English grain also could mean "seed of flowers; pip of an apple, grape, etc.; a berry, legume, nut." Grain alcohol attested by 1854.
Example
- 1. Global 's biggest seller is grain storage bins .
- 2. Reliable international grain reserves policies need to be established .
- 3. But it calls itself neither grain nor sand .
- 4. The grain direction must go from head to tail .
- 5. It also diverted grain reserves to the area , but food inflation increased .