grain
- 01 B1 Intermediate
n.the small, hard seeds of food plants like wheat, rice, or corn.
n.the harvested seeds of various cereal grasses or food crops, such as wheat, maize, or barley, considered collectively.
Simple“The farmers stored the grain in large buildings to keep it dry for winter.”
In context“Global markets fluctuated wildly as reports emerged of a significant decrease in the annual grain harvest due to the prolonged drought.”
- 02 B1 Intermediate
n.a single, very small piece of a substance like sand, salt, or sugar.
n.a single small, hard particle of a substance; the smallest unit of a bulk material.
Simple“I think I have a grain of sand in my eye from the beach.”
In context“The forensic team examined every grain of dust found at the scene, hoping to find a link to the suspect's warehouse.”
- 03 B2 Upper Intermediate
n.the natural lines and patterns you see in wood or leather.
n.the longitudinal arrangement or pattern of fibres in wood, or the texture of the hair side of leather.
Simple“He sanded the table carefully, always moving the paper with the grain of the wood.”
In context“The carpenter explained that cutting against the grain would likely cause the timber to splinter and ruin the finish.”
UsageOften used in the phrase 'against the grain' to describe something that feels unnatural.
- 04 C1 Advanced
n.the tiny dots or 'noise' that make a photo look slightly fuzzy or textured.
n.the granular appearance of a processed photographic image resulting from the presence of small particles of metallic silver.
Simple“The old black-and-white photo had a lot of grain, which made it look very artistic.”
In context“High-speed films typically exhibit more prominent grain, a characteristic often sought by photographers for its gritty, atmospheric quality.”
SynonymsnoisegranularityAntonyms - 05 C2 Proficiency
n.a very small unit of weight used for things like medicine or gold.
n.a minute unit of mass in the troy system, originally based on the weight of a single grain of barley.
Simple“The old recipe called for a few grains of a rare spice.”
In context“In the apothecaries' system, the grain served as the foundational unit of weight for measuring potent medicinal powders.”
- 06 C1 Advanced
v.to paint or treat a surface so it looks like it has a wood pattern.
v.to paint or finish a surface in imitation of the natural grain of wood or another material.
Simple“The decorator used a special tool to grain the metal door so it looked like oak.”
In context“The restoration expert spent weeks graining the new panels to ensure they matched the original nineteenth-century woodwork.”
From Middle English greyn, grayn, grein, from Old French grain, grein, from Latin grānum (“seed”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm (“grain”). Doublet of corn, gram, granum, and grao.
From Middle English grayn, from Old Norse grein (“bough, branch”), from Proto-Germanic *grainiz (“branch, twig, ramification”), of unknown origin. Related to English grove (“thicket”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.