grain

• IPA^(key): /ɡɹeɪn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪn

From Middle English greyn, grayn, grein, borrowed from Old French grain, grein, from Latin grānum (“seed”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm (“grain”). Compare English corn.

grain (countable and uncountable, plural grains)

1. (uncountable) The harvested seeds of various grass food crops eg: wheat, corn, barley.

   We stored a thousand tons of grain for the winter.

2. (uncountable) Similar seeds from any food crop, eg buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa.
3. (countable) A single seed of grass food crops.

   a grain of wheat

   grains of oat

4. (countable, uncountable) The crops from which grain is harvested.

   The fields were planted with grain.

5. (uncountable) A linear texture of a material or surface.

   Cut along the grain of the wood.

   He doesn't like to shave against the grain.

6. (countable) A single particle of a substance.

   a grain of sand

   a grain of salt

7. (countable) A very small unit of weight, in England equal to 1/480 of an ounce troy, 0.0648 grams or, to be more exact, 64.79891 milligrams (0.002285714 avoirdupois ounce). A carat grain or pearl grain is 1/4 carat or 50 milligrams. The old French grain was 1/9216 livre or 53.11 milligrams, and in the mesures usuelles permitted from 1812 to 1839, with the livre redefined as 500 grams, it was 54.25 milligrams.
8. (countable) A former unit of gold purity, also known as carat grain, equal to ¹⁄₄ "carat" (karat).
9. (materials) A region within a material having a single crystal structure or direction.
10. 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.
    • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

      all in a robe of darkest grain

    • Quoted by Coleridge, preface to Aids to Reflection

      […] doing as the dyers do, who, having first dipped their silks in colours of less value, then give them the last tincture of crimson in grain.

11. The hair side of a piece of leather, or the marking on that side.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

12. (in the plural) The remains of grain, etc., after brewing or distillation; hence, any residuum. Also called draff.
13. (botany) A rounded prominence on the back of a sepal, as in the common dock.
14. Temper; natural disposition; inclination.
    • (Can we date this quote?) Hayward

      brothers […] not united in grain

15. (photography, videography) 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.

• against the grain
• grain of salt

• cereal

grain (third-person singular simple present grains, present participle graining, simple past and past participle grained)

1. 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. (tanning) To remove the hair or fat from a skin.
6. (tanning) To soften leather.
7. To yield fruit.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gower to this entry?)

From Middle English grayn, from Old Norse grein.

grain (plural grains)

1. A branch of a tree; a stalk or stem of a plant.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of G. Douglas to this entry?)

2. A tine, prong, or fork.
   1. One of the branches of a valley or river.
   2. An iron fish spear or harpoon, with a number of points half-barbed inwardly.
      • 1770: Served 5 lb of fish per man which was caught by striking with grains — journal of Stephen Forwood (gunner on H.M. Bark Endeavour), 4 May 1770, quoted by Parkin (page 195).
   3. A blade of a sword, knife, etc.
3. (founding) A thin piece of metal, used in a mould to steady a core.

• grain in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• grain in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• Nigra, Ragin, Rigan, agrin, nigra, raign, raing

• IPA^(key): /ɡʁɛ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛ̃

From Middle French, from Old French grain, grein, from Latin grānum, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm.

grain m (plural grains)

1. grain
2. (figuratively) a small amount, a bit

• avoir un grain

• grenier

grain m (plural grains)

1. (nautical) squall, thunderstorm

• garni

• “grain” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

grain

1. Alternative form of greynen

• grein

From Latin grānum.

grain m (oblique plural grainz, nominative singular grainz, nominative plural grain)

1. grain (edible part of a cereal plant)
   • circa 1120, Philippe de Taon, Bestiaire, line 421:

     E quant grain ad truved de tuz maneres de bled

     When it [the ant] found grain of all manners of wheat

• grenier / guernier

• → Middle English: greyn, grayn, greyne, grayne, grein, grone
  • English: grain
  • Scots: grain
• Middle French: grain
  • French: grain