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Of or pertaining to the grasses which are cultivated for their edible seeds (as wheat, maize, rice, etc.), or to their seeds or grain.

The cereals. Crabb.

A nitrogenous substance closely resembling diastase, obtained from bran, and possessing the power of converting starch into dextrin, sugar, and lactic acid. Watts.

A small moth (Gelechia cerealella) which is very destructive to wheat and other grain. The larva eats out the inferior of the grain, leaving only the shell.

The broken coat of the seed of wheat, rye, or other cereal grain, separated from the flour or meal by sifting or bolting; the coarse, chaffy part of ground grain.

A fungus (Ustilago foetida) which affects the ear of cereals, filling the grains with a fetid dust; -- also called pepperbrand.

The various farinaceous grains of the cereal grasses used for food, as wheat, rye, barley, maize, oats.

The spike or head of any cereal (as, wheat, rye, barley, Indian corn, etc.), containing the kernels. First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. Mark iv. 28.

A diseased condition of rye and other cereals, in which the grains become black, and often spur-shaped. It is caused by a parasitic fungus, Claviceps purpurea.

A fine flour or meal made from cereal grains or from the starch or fecula of vegetables, extracted by various processes, and used in cookery.

An albuminous body, resembling animal fibrin in composition, found in cereal grains and similar seeds; vegetable fibrin. Fibrin factors (Physiol.), the albuminous bodies, paraglobulin and fibrinigen in the blood, which, by the action of the fibrin ferment, are changed into fibrin, in coagulation. -- Fibrin ferment (Ph…

(Zoöl.), one of several small moths, of the family Tineidæ (as Tinea granella and Butalis cereAlella), whose larvæ devour grain in storehouses. -- Grain side (Leather), the side of a skin or hide from which the hair has been removed; -- opposed to flesh side. -- Grains of paradise, the seeds of a species of amomum.…

The denuded stems or stalks of such crops as buckwheat and the cereal grains, beans, etc.; straw.

An ear of wheat, barley, or of one of the other small cereals.

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.

as lost its juices from the ravages of insects, such as the wheat midge, or Trips (Thrips cerealium).

A well-known cereal grass (Oryza sativa) and its seed. This plant is extensively cultivated in warm climates, and the grain forms a large portion of the food of the inhabitants. In America it grows chiefly on low, moist land, which can be overflowed. Ant rice. (Bot.) See under Ant. -- French rice. (Bot.) See Amelcorn.…

A minute mold or fungus forming reddish or rusty spots on the leaves and stems of cereal and other grasses (Trichobasis Rubigo- vera), now usually believed to be a form or condition of the corn mildew (Puccinia graminis). As rust, it has solitary reddish spores; as corn mildew, the spores are double and blackish.…

A grain yielded by a hardy cereal grass (Secale cereale), closely allied to wheat; also, the plant itself. Rye constitutes a large portion of the breadstuff used by man.

A genus of cereal grasses including rye.