millet

n. [ F., dim. of mil, L. milium; akin to Gr. meli`nh, AS. mil. ] (Bot.) The name of several cereal and forage grasses which bear an abundance of small roundish grains. The common millets of Germany and Southern Europe are Panicum miliaceum, and Setaria Italica.

☞
Arabian millet is Sorghum Halepense. --
Egyptian millet or
East Indian millet is Penicillaria spicata. --
Indian millet is Sorghum vulgare. (See under Indian.) --
Italian millet is Setaria Italica, a coarse, rank-growing annual grass, valuable for fodder when cut young, and bearing nutritive seeds; -- called also Hungarian grass. --
Texas millet is Panicum Texanum. --
Wild millet, or
Millet grass, is Milium effusum, a tall grass growing in woods. [ 1913 Webster ]