rye

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun the seed of the cereal grass
  2. noun hardy annual cereal grass widely cultivated in northern Europe where its grain is the chief ingredient of black bread and in North America for forage and soil improvement
  3. noun whiskey distilled from rye or rye and malt

Etymology

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

In classic literature

A single word — an entire dictionary opens.

Type a word, a sentence, a book title, or a link to an English article. WordNet and the Classics answer.

Try

A library of classics · a vault of words · instant etymology & meaning

Continue reading