rhizoverbBeta
DictionarymilletSmall-seeded cereal
noun

millet

MIL-it/ˈmɪlɪt/

A cereal grass with small edible seeds, or its grain.

Harvested millet grains lie beside the ripe stalks.

A close botanical still life of ripe foxtail millet stalks beside a shallow bowl of their tiny harvested grains, making both the crop and its edible seed visible.
Etymology
millOld Frenchmillet
+etOld Frenchdiminutive

Millet is a diminutive built on an older name for the same grain. The formation therefore refashions an existing crop name rather than naming a new kind of cereal.

In context

Lesley the Bird Nerd9:27
as long as you are in the range they will happily collect sunflower seeds below on the ground or muck into some suet on a chilly day tray feeders with millet are a real favorite of theirs
The Dark-eyed Junco | A Hardy Winter Bird

More examples

  • We cooked millet as a side dish.
  • The birdseed mixture contained millet.
  • The mill ground millet into flour.

Forms

millet

Similar words

sorghum
Sorghum is a different cereal crop with larger grains; millet names several small-seeded cereal grasses.
quinoa
Quinoa is an edible seed from a nongrass plant; millet is a cereal grass.