grain

«grain» in Mova's school dictionary: the seeds of plants like wheat, rice, oats, barley and… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (grain, grains; uncountable for the crop)

meaning for a pupil

1) Grain is the seeds of plants like wheat, rice, oats, barley and corn, used for food. tree →

2) A grain is one tiny hard piece of something, like a grain of sand, salt or sugar. tree →

3) The grain of wood is the pattern of lines in it. tree →

4) A grain of something can mean a very small amount, like a grain of truth. tree →

sense in the lessons

A crop measured in bags, tons or bushels, sold or stored; sometimes tiny grains counted. In science and health: whole grains (brown rice, oats, wholemeal bread) are good food; flour is ground grain. In stories: the farmer, the mill, the little red hen. Phrases: «a grain of sand», «whole grain», «against the grain», «a grain of truth».

examples

• The farmer stores 500 kilograms of grain. tree →
• Each bag holds 25 kilograms of grain. tree →
• A hen eats 100 grams of grain a day. tree →
• The truck carries 3 tons of grain. tree →
• There were grains of sand in my shoes. tree →
• Wholegrain bread has more fibre. tree →
• The little red hen planted grains of wheat. tree →
• Sand the wood along the grain. tree →
• He wanted to save at least some of his grain. tree →

note

An amount that is weighed, not counted, when used as a crop; per bag or per day it is a rate. Trap: watch the units (grams, kilograms, tons) before adding. Crop sense is uncountable («a lot of grain»); a single piece is countable («three grains of rice»).

In the corpora

• Real farm cats are useful mousers that keep mice and rats away from barns full of grain.
• Mice prefer grains, seeds and sweet foods to cheese, so peanut butter works better in humane traps.
• Mice will eat cheese, but they prefer grains, seeds and sweet foods, so people baiting traps usually use peanut butter.
• The smallest bone, the stirrup in your ear, is smaller than a grain of rice.
• Wheat is a tall grass whose seeds, the grains, are ground into flour.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «grain» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.