rye

From Middle English rie, reighe, from Old English ryġe, from Proto-West Germanic *rugi, from Proto-Germanic *rugiz, from Proto-Indo-European *Hrugʰís.

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

• IPA^(key): /ɹaɪ/

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• Rhymes: -aɪ
• Homophone: wry

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.]
   • 1925, John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, 2nd section, page 146:

     “Gimme a shot of rye.” The whiskey stung his throat hot and fragrant.

   • 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 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.

   • 1971, “American Pie”, in American Pie‎, performed by Don McLean:

     Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey ’n rye/Singin’, "This’ll be the day that I die."

5. (US, Canada) A drink of rye.
   • 1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 17:

     It concerns the gnomelike quality of the average American at a party. I have been to many parties where staid American business men have been transformed by a few ryes or bourbons into unpredictable gremlins out for adventure.

6. Caraway (from the mistaken assumption that the whole seeds, often used to season rye bread, are the rye itself)
7. Ryegrass, any of the species of Lolium.
8. A disease of hawks.
   • 1486, Juliana Berners, Book of Saint Albans:

     And if it [vndeꝛ the peꝛch] be grene ſhe engenderith the Ry. The condicion of this euell is this, it wil ariſe in the hede and make the hede to ſwell, ⁊ the iyen all glaymous, and dyrke, and bot it haue helpe: it will downe in to the legges, and maake the legges to rancle, and if it goo fro the legges in to the hede a gayne, thi hawke is bot looſt.

   • 1618, Symon Latham, Latham's Falconry:

     Of all the diseases that belongs to these Hawkes, there bee onely three that they bee most subiect vnto, which is the Rye, the Crampe, and the Craye.

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

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

• rie, reye, reyghe, reyhe, ruye

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈriː(ə)/

rye (plural ryes)

1. rye (Secale cereale)

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

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

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

1. rya

• ru

• “rye” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

• yre