millet

Noun

WordNet 3.0

Noun (3)

any of various small-grained annual cereal and forage grasses of the genera Panicum, Echinochloa, Setaria, Sorghum, and Eleusine
French painter of rural scenes (1814-1875)Synonyms: Millet Jean Francois Millet
small seed of any of various annual cereal grasses especially Setaria italica

Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

millet \mil"let\ (m[i^]l"l[e^]t), n. [F., dim. of mil, L. milium; akin to Gr. meli`nh, AS. mil.] (Bot.) The name of several cereal and forage grasses which bear an abundance of small roundish grains. The common millets of Germany and Southern Europe are Panicum miliaceum, and Setaria Italica.

Note:

Arabian millet is Sorghum Halepense.

Egyptian millet or

East Indian millet is Penicillaria spicata.

Indian millet is Sorghum vulgare. (See under Indian.)

Italian millet is Setaria Italica, a coarse, rank-growing annual grass, valuable for fodder when cut young, and bearing nutritive seeds; -- called also Hungarian grass.

Texas millet is Panicum Texanum.

Wild millet, or

Millet grass, is Milium effusum, a tall grass growing in woods. [1913 Webster]