Wheat

Wheat, hwēt, n. the most valuable of all the cereal grasses, the grain furnishing a white flour for bread—known as bearded, beardless, or bald, according to the presence or the absence of the awns or beard; as white, red, or amber, according to colour; and as spring, summer, autumn, or winter, according to the time of sowing.—ns. Wheat′-bird, the chaffinch; Wheat′-ear, an ear of wheat; Wheat′-eel, a disease in wheat—also Ear-cockle.—adj. Wheat′en, made of wheat.—ns. Wheat′-field, a field of wheat; Wheat′-fly, name of several flies which destroy wheat—e.g. the Hessian fly; Wheat′-midge, a dipterous insect which lays its eggs in the flowers of wheat-heads, and whose reddish larvæ devour the kernels; Wheat′-mil′dew, the rust which gathers on wheat and oats; Wheat′-moth, one of several small moths whose larvæ devour stored wheat.—Wheat-ear stitch, a fancy stitch in embroidery. [A.S. hwǽte—hwit, white; Ger. weizen; allied to white, and named from its colour.]