Library / English Dictionary

CEREAL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A breakfast food prepared from grain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("cereal" is a kind of...):

breakfast food (any food (especially cereal) usually served for breakfast)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cereal"):

Pablum (a soft form of cereal for infants)

hot cereal (a cereal that is served hot)

cold cereal; dry cereal (a cereal that is not heated before serving)

Derivation:

cereal (made of grain or relating to grain or the plants that produce it)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Foodstuff prepared from the starchy grains of cereal grasses

Synonyms:

cereal; food grain; grain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("cereal" is a kind of...):

food product; foodstuff (a substance that can be used or prepared for use as food)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cereal"):

malt (a cereal grain (usually barley) that is kiln-dried after having been germinated by soaking in water; used especially in brewing and distilling)

Indian rice; wild rice (grains of aquatic grass of North America)

rice (grains used as food either unpolished or more often polished)

oat (seed of the annual grass Avena sativa (spoken of primarily in the plural as 'oats'))

wheat; wheat berry (grains of common wheat; sometimes cooked whole or cracked as cereal; usually ground into flour)

buckwheat (grain ground into flour)

barley; barleycorn (a grain of barley)

millet (small seed of any of various annual cereal grasses especially Setaria italica)

groats (the hulled and crushed grain of various cereals)

grist (grain intended to be or that has been ground)

corn; edible corn (ears of corn that can be prepared and served for human food)

Derivation:

cereal (made of grain or relating to grain or the plants that produce it)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Grass whose starchy grains are used as food: wheat; rice; rye; oats; maize; buckwheat; millet

Synonyms:

cereal; cereal grass

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("cereal" is a kind of...):

grass (narrow-leaved green herbage: grown as lawns; used as pasture for grazing animals; cut and dried as hay)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cereal"):

wild rice; Zizania aquatica (perennial aquatic grass of North America bearing grain used for food)

corn ((Great Britain) any of various cereal plants (especially the dominant crop of the region--wheat in Great Britain or oats in Scotland and Ireland))

corn; Indian corn; maize; Zea mays (tall annual cereal grass bearing kernels on large ears: widely cultivated in America in many varieties; the principal cereal in Mexico and Central and South America since pre-Columbian times)

wheat (annual or biennial grass having erect flower spikes and light brown grains)

grain (a cereal grass)

millet (any of various small-grained annual cereal and forage grasses of the genera Panicum, Echinochloa, Setaria, Sorghum, and Eleusine)

rye; Secale cereale (hardy annual cereal grass widely cultivated in northern Europe where its grain is the chief ingredient of black bread and in North America for forage and soil improvement)

bulrush millet; cattail millet; pearl millet; Pennisetum Americanum; Pennisetum glaucum (tall grass having cattail like spikes; grown in Africa and Asia for its grain and in the United States chiefly for forage; sometimes used in making beer)

rice grass; ricegrass (any grass of the genus Oryzopsis)

rice (annual or perennial rhizomatous marsh grasses; seed used for food; straw used for paper)

barley (cultivated since prehistoric times; grown for forage and grain)

oat (annual grass of Europe and North Africa; grains used as food and fodder (referred to primarily in the plural: 'oats'))

Derivation:

cereal (made of grain or relating to grain or the plants that produce it)

 II. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Made of grain or relating to grain or the plants that produce it

Example:

cereal grasses

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Pertainym:

grain (dry seed-like fruit produced by the cereal grasses: e.g. wheat, barley, Indian corn)

Derivation:

cereal (a breakfast food prepared from grain)

cereal (foodstuff prepared from the starchy grains of cereal grasses)

cereal (grass whose starchy grains are used as food: wheat; rice; rye; oats; maize; buckwheat; millet)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Nitrogen is the main nutrient added to cereal crops like corn, which makes them grow faster and stronger.

(New Test Can Determine Nitrogen Levels in Soil, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

It is found in red meat, fish, poultry, lentils, beans, and foods with iron added, such as cereal.

(Iron, NCI Dictionary)

Complex carbohydrates include whole grain breads and cereals, starchy vegetables and legumes.

(Carbohydrates, NIH)

A substance found in bacteria, plants, and certain foods, such as baker’s yeast, cereal grains, and mushrooms.

(Beta-glucan, NCI Dictionary)

A naturally occurring dicarboxylic acid produced by Malassezia furfur and found in whole grain cereals, rye, barley and animal products.

(Azelaic Acid, NCI Thesaurus)

The paper blamed India’s ‘green revolution’ in the mid-1960s, which focused on cultivation of wheat and rice to meet food security demands, for the decline of the area of coarse cereals.

(Course grains better than rice for health, environment, SciDev.Net)

This is consistent with the agricultural intensification process that is known to have occurred, due to the cultivation of cereals, particularly barley.

(Analysis of the Palaeolithic diet finds that, in the prehistoric age, for thousands of years there were no social divisions in food consumption, University of Granada)

An alcoholic beverage usually made from malted cereal grain (as barley), flavored with hops, and brewed by slow fermentation.

(Beer, NCI Thesaurus)

Ochratoxin A is a widespread, naturally occurring mycotoxin that is produced by some fungi, especially by Aspergillus and Penicillium, and is a very common food contaminant found on grains, coffee beans, nuts, decaying vegetation, moldy cereals and animal feeds.

(Ochratoxin A, NCI Thesaurus)

The normal growth of babies can be broken down into the following areas: • Gross motor - controlling the head, sitting, crawling, maybe even starting to walk • Fine motor - holding a spoon, picking up a piece of cereal between thumb and finger • Sensory - seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and smelling • Language - starting to make sounds, learning some words, understanding what people say • Social - the ability to play with family members and other children

(Infant and Newborn Development, NIH)