different between fescue vs rye

English

Etymology

From Old French festu (modern fétu), from Proto-Romance festu, from Latin fest?ca (“stalk, stem, straw”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?f?skju?/

Noun

fescue (countable and uncountable, plural fescues)

1. (countable) A straw, wire, stick, etc., used chiefly to point out letters to children when learning to read.
   • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon

     ‘Now then,’ Mason rapping upon the Table’s Edge with a sinister-looking Fescue of Ebony, whose List of Uses simple Indication does not quite exhaust, whilst the Girls squirm pleasingly

2. A hardy grass commonly used to border golf fairways in temperate climates. Any member of the genus Festuca.
3. (countable) An instrument for playing on the harp; a plectrum.
   • c. 1610s, George Chapman, Batrachomyomachia

     with thy golden fescue play'dst upon
     Thy hollow harp

4. (countable) The style of a sundial.

Translations

Verb

fescue (third-person singular simple present fescues, present participle fescuing, simple past and past participle fescued)

1. To use a fescue, or teach with a fescue.
   • 1641, John Milton, Animadversions upon The Remonstrants Defence Against Smectymnuus.

English

Etymology

From Middle English rie, reighe, from Old English ry?e, from Proto-West Germanic *rugi, from Proto-Germanic *rugiz, from Proto-Indo-European *Hrug?ís.

Germanic cognates include Dutch and West Frisian rogge, Low German Rogg, German Roggen, Old Norse rugr (Danish rug, Swedish råg); non-Germanic cognates include Russian ???? (rož?) and Latvian rudzi.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?a?/
• Rhymes: -a?
• Homophone: wry

Noun

rye (countable and uncountable, plural ryes)

1. A grain used extensively in Europe for making bread, beer, and (now generally) for animal fodder. [from 8th c.]
2. The grass Secale cereale from which the grain is obtained. [from 14th c.]
3. Rye bread. [from 19th c.]
4. (US, Canada) Rye whiskey. [from 19th c.]
   • 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin 2011, p. 159:

     I bought a pint of rye at the liquor counter and carried it over to the stools and set it down on the cracked marble counter.

5. Caraway (from the mistaken assumption that the whole seeds, often used to season rye bread, are the rye itself)
6. Ryegrass, any of the species of Lolium.
7. A disease of hawks.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ainsworth to this entry?)

Coordinate terms

• (Cereals) cereal; barley, fonio, maize/corn, millet, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, teff, triticale, wheat

Derived terms

• ryegrass

Translations

Anagrams

• -ery, -yer, Rey, Yer, e'ry, eyr, yer, yre

Middle English

Alternative forms

• rie, reye, reyghe, reyhe, ruye

Etymology

From Old English ryge, from Proto-West Germanic *rugi.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ri?(?)/

Noun

rye (plural ryes)

1. rye (Secale cereale)

Descendants

• English: rye
• Scots: ry
• Yola: ree

References

• “r?e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Noun

rye f (definite singular rya, indefinite plural ryer, definite plural ryene)

1. rya

Related terms

• ru

References

• “rye” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Anagrams

• yre