grain | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

172 entries found.

mid-15c., "act or business of grinding (grain) in a mill," verbal noun from mill (v.1). In reference to shaping metals by 1610s; in coin-making by 1817.

Eustace

masc. proper name, from Old French Eustace (Modern French Eustache), from Latin Eustachius, probably from Greek eustakhos "fruitful," from eu "well, good" (see eu-) + stakhys "ear (of grain);" see spike (n.1).

banality (n.)

1857, "anything common or trite;" 1878, "triteness, triviality," from French banalité (17c.), from banal "hackneyed, commonplace" (see banal). Earlier in reference to restrictions on grain-milling, etc., in feudal tenure in France and French Canada.

malt (v.)

mid-15c., malten, "to convert grain to malt," from malt (n.). Meaning "to make with malt" is from c. 1600. Related: Malted; malting. Malted (n.) "a drink with malted milk" is by 1945.

grist-mill (n.)

also gristmill, c. 1600, from grist (n.) in the sense "amount ground at one time," hence "grain carried to the mill by the owner for grinding at one time," + mill (n.).

triticale (n.)

hybrid cereal grass, 1952, from Modern Latin Triti(cum) "wheat" (literally "grain for threshing," from tritus, past participle of terere "to rub, thresh, grind," from PIE root *tere- (1) "to rub, turn") + (Se)cale "rye."

groats (n.)

"hulled grain coarsely ground or crushed; oatmeal," early 14c., from grot "piece, fragment," from Old English grot "particle," from same root as grit (n.). The word also meant "excrement in pellets" (mid-15c.).

rip-saw (n.)

"a hand-saw the teeth of which have more rake and less set than a cross-cut saw, used for cutting wood in the direction of the grain" [Century Dictionary], 1846, from rip (n.) "split timber" (see rip (v.) + saw (n.1)).

grist (n.)

Old English grist "action of grinding; grain to be ground," perhaps related to grindan "to grind" (see grind (v.)), though OED calls this connection "difficult." Meaning "wheat which is to be ground" is early 15c., as is the figurative extension from this sense.

white bread (n.)

c. 1300, as opposed to darker whole-grain type, from white (adj.) + bread (n.). Its popularity among middle-class America led to the slang adjectival sense of "conventional, bourgeois" (c. 1980). Old English had hwitehlaf.

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