Online Encyclopedia

GRAIN (derived through the French fro...

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 322 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GRAIN (derived through the French from
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Lat. granum, seed, from an
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Aryan root meaning " to
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wear down," which also appears in the
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common Teutonic word " corn ")
  , a word particularly applied to the seed, in botanical language the " fruit," of cereals, and hence applied, as a collective
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term to cereal
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plants generally, to which, in
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English, the term " corn " is also applied (see GRAIN TRADE) . Apart from this, the chief meaning, the word is used of the malt refuse of
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brewing and distilling, and of many hard rounded small particles, resembling the seeds of plants, such as " grains " of sand, salt, gold,
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gunpowder, &c . " Grain " is also the name of the smallest unit of
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weight, both in the
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United
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Kingdom and the United States of
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America . Its origin is supposed to be the weight of a grain of wheat, dried and gathered from the
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middle of the ear . The troy grain= 1/576o of a lb, the
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avoirdupois grain= I/70oo of a lb . In
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diamond weighing the grain = s of the carat, = •7925 of the troy grain . The word " grains " was early used, as also in French, of the small seed-like
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insects supposed formerly to be the berries of trees, from which a
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scarlet dye was extracted (see
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COCHINEAL and KERHES) . From the Fr. en graine, literally in dye, comes the French verb engrainer, Eng . " engrain " or " ingrain," meaning to dye in any fast colour . From the further use of " grain " for the texture of substances, such as wood,
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meat, &c., " engrained " or " ingrained " means- ineradicable, impregnated, dyed through and through . The " grain " of leather is the side of a skin showing the fibre after the hair has been removed . The imitating in paint of the grain of different kinds of woods is known as " graining " (see PAINTER-
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WORK) .

" Grain," or more commonly in the plural " grains," construed as a singular, is the name of an

instrument with two or more barbed prongs, used for spearing fish . This word is Scandinavian in origin, and is connected with
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Dan. green, Swed. gren, branch, and means the fork of a tree, of the
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body, or the prongs of a fork, &c . It is not connected with "
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groin," the inguinal parts of the body, which in its earliest forms appears as grynde .

End of Article: GRAIN (derived through the French from Lat. granum, seed, from an Aryan root meaning " to wear down," which also appears in the common Teutonic word " corn ")
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