barley

/ˈbɑrli/

/ˈbɑli/

Other forms: barleys

Barley is a grain that's related to the grass family and is used in many foods and drinks. Barley is used all over the world and is most commonly found in breads, breakfast cereals, soups, and stews.

Barley is the fourth largest crop grown in the world. It's used to feed grazing livestock, eaten as a whole grain, milled into flour for baking, and dried to make malt, an ingredient in both beer and whisky. The Old English root of barley is bærlic, most likely from a Proto-Indo-European source that means "bristle, point, or projection."

Definitions of barley

1. noun

   a plant cultivated since prehistoric times, grown for forage and grain
   types:

   Hordeum vulgare, common barley

   grass yielding grain used for breakfast food and animal feed and in malt beverages

   Hordeum murinum, barley grass, wall barley

   European annual grass often found as a weed in waste ground especially along roadsides and hedgerows

   Hordeum jubatum, foxtail barley, squirreltail barley, squirreltail grass

   barley grown for its highly ornamental flower heads with delicate long silky awns; North America and northeastern Asia

   Hordeum pusillum, little barley

   annual barley native to western North America and widespread in southern United States and tropical America

   type of:

   cereal, cereal grass

   grass whose starchy grains are used as food: wheat; rice; rye; oats; maize; buckwheat; millet
2. noun

   a grain of barley
   synonyms: barleycorn

   types:

   pearl barley

   barley ground into small round pellets

   type of:

   cereal, food grain, grain

   foodstuff prepared from the starchy grains of cereal grasses