millet

/ˈmɪlɪt/

/ˈmɪlɪt/

Other forms: millets

Millet is a grain-like food that grows in grassy stalks and is a staple in both Asia and Africa. People on gluten-free diets aren't bothered by millet, which is technically a seed rather than a true grain. Pass the millet, please!

Even in dry, hot conditions, millet grows easily and quickly, which has made it an important food in countries like India and Nigeria. Some East Asian countries brew beer using millet, and the Indian flatbread roti is commonly made with millet flour. Russia and Germany share a traditional millet-based food, a breakfast porridge.

Definitions of millet

1. noun

   any of various small-grained annual cereal and forage grasses of the genera Panicum, Echinochloa, Setaria, Sorghum, and Eleusine
   types:

   Echinochloa crusgalli, barn grass, barn millet, barnyard grass

   a coarse annual panic grass; a cosmopolitan weed; occasionally used for hay or grazing

   Echinochloa frumentacea, Japanese barnyard millet, Japanese millet, billion-dollar grass, sanwa millet

   coarse annual grass cultivated in Japan and southeastern Asia for its edible seeds and for forage; important wildlife food in United States

   Eleusine indica, goose grass, wire grass, yard grass, yardgrass

   coarse annual grass having fingerlike spikes of flowers; native to Old World tropics; a naturalized weed elsewhere

   African millet, Eleusine coracana, coracan, corakan, finger millet, kurakkan, ragee, ragi

   East Indian cereal grass whose seed yield a somewhat bitter flour, a staple in the Orient

   panic grass

   any grass of the genus Panicum; grown for grain and fodder

   sorghum

   economically important Old World tropical cereal grass

   Panicum capillare, old witch grass, old witchgrass, tumble grass, witch grass, witchgrass

   North American grass with slender brushy panicles; often a weed on cultivated land

   Panicum virgatum, switch grass

   grass of western America used for hay

   Panicum miliaceum, broomcorn millet, hog millet

   extensively cultivated in Europe and Asia for its grain and in United States sometimes for forage

   Panicum Texanum, Texas millet, goose grass

   annual weedy grass used for hay

   Sorghum bicolor, great millet, kaffir, kaffir corn, kafir corn

   important for human and animal food; growth habit and stem form similar to Indian corn but having sawtooth-edged leaves

   grain sorghum

   any of several sorghums cultivated primarily for grain

   sorgho, sorgo, sugar sorghum, sweet sorghum

   any of several sorghums cultivated as a source of syrup

   Aleppo grass, Johnson grass, Sorghum halepense, evergreen millet, means grass

   tall perennial grass that spreads by creeping rhizomes and is grown for fodder; naturalized in southern United States where it is a serious pest on cultivated land

   Sorghum vulgare technicum, broomcorn

   tall grasses grown for the elongated stiff-branched panicle used for brooms and brushes

   type of:

   cereal, cereal grass

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

   small seed of any of various annual cereal grasses especially Setaria italica
   type of:

   cereal, food grain, grain

   foodstuff prepared from the starchy grains of cereal grasses