rye

From Middle English, from Old English ryġe, from Proto-Germanic *rugiz, from Proto-Indo-European *rúgʰis. Germanic cognates include Dutch and West Frisian rogge, Low German Rogg, German Roggen, Old Norse rugr (Danish rug, Swedish råg); non-Germanic cognates include Russian рожь (rožʹ) and Latvian rudzi.

• IPA^(key): /ɹaɪ/

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• Rhymes: -aɪ
• Homophone: wry

rye (countable and uncountable, plural ryes)

1. A grain used extensively in Europe for making bread, beer, and (now generally) for animal fodder. [from 8th c.]
2. The grass Secale cereale from which the grain is obtained. [from 14th c.]
3. Rye bread. [from 19th c.]
4. (US, Canada) Rye whiskey. [from 19th c.]
   • 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin 2011, p. 159:

     I bought a pint of rye at the liquor counter and carried it over to the stools and set it down on the cracked marble counter.

5. Caraway (from the mistaken assumption that the whole seeds, often used to season rye bread, are the rye itself)
6. Ryegrass, any of the species of Lolium.
7. A disease of hawks.

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

• (Cereals) cereal; barley, fonio, maize/corn, millet, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, triticale, wheat

• ryegrass

• -ery, -yer, Rey, Yer, e'ry, eyr, yer, yre