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Glite Dictionary
cereal grass

cereal grass

3.4
A grass plant grown for food grains like wheat or rice
  • noun
  • /ˈsɪr.i.əl ɡræs/
  • Specialized
translation icon : gramínea
  • Many types of cereal grasses are used in bread-making.

Examples

  • Farmers often grow cereal grass for its grains.

  • The farmer rotated different cereal grasses to maintain soil fertility and reduce pests.

  • Rice, another important cereal grass, is a staple food for much of the world's population.

  • Wheat is a widely cultivated cereal grass used as the basis for bread and pasta.

  • Farmers grow various cereal grasses like wheat and oats for their nutritious grains.

  • This bakery uses flour made from cereal grasses to create delicious bread.

  • Many breakfast foods contain ingredients derived from cereal grasses such as corn and rice.

Synonyms

cereal
vscereal grass
  • Specialized
11 1.0

A grass grown for the grains you can eat, like wheat or rice

lists many example types of these grasses rather than stressing their food use

Surface Forms

cereal grass singular
cereal grasses plural

Morphology

cereal + grass

The meaning is directly compositional: 'cereal' (grass grown for starchy edible grains) modifies 'grass', yielding 'grass grown for edible grains'. This simple modifier+noun construction is common and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both words can readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

The name cereal grass comes from putting together cereal (the word for the grain people eat) and grass, because these are grass plants that grow edible grains like wheat and rice. So the name today means a grass grown for 'food' or 'edible grains'.