rye
/rʌɪ
/noun [mass noun]
1A wheat-like cereal plant which tolerates poor soils and low temperatures.
- Secale cereale, family Gramineae.
- Monotony came from the self-sufficiency of small farms; since bread was the staple food, most farms grew wheat, along with other cereals like rye, oat, buckwheat, maize and barley.
- Wheat, barley, rice, rye, oats, millet and corn are the world's top food crops.
1.1Grains of rye, used mainly for making bread or whisky, and for fodder: [as modifier]: rye flour...
- Bread made from rye flour with all the bran removed is pale grey.
- The product is whole grain if the first ingredient is whole grain, whole wheat or rye (plain wheat flour is not whole grain).
- The basis of the Mordvin economy was cereal agriculture, and the staples of the Mordvin diet were bread made from rye flour, as well as oats and barley.
2 (also rye whisky) Whisky in which a significant amount of the grain used in distillation is fermented rye: half a bottle of rye...
- Ruth orders four rounds of quadruple ryes, Faulkner orders four rounds of moonshine.
- Spirits such as whisky, bourbon, Cognac, Armagnac and rye derive virtually all their colour from the time they spend in oak barrels - they would be clear as water otherwise.
- Heaven Hill markets more than 50 labels of bourbon, rye, scotch, vodka, gin, tequila, rum, cognac, wines and cordials.
3chiefly North American short for rye bread. pastrami on rye...
- Sometimes I'll make furtive pilgrimages to the Carnegie Deli to dine on that whopper classic, the hot pastrami on rye.
- Before he passed away a few years ago, he gave me his hoard of recipes, including authentic New York cheesecake, bagels, rye, pumpernickel, challah, cole slaw and many others.
- Titus was getting almost weepy about this when Patrice limped in with the lunch and spread it out on the marble table: hot pastrami on rye, big pickles, pastries and coffee in white cardboard tubs.
Origin
Old English ryge, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch rogge and German Roggen.