barley

¹ American  

[bahr-lee] / ˈbɑr li /

noun

1. a widely distributed cereal plant belonging to the genus Hordeum, of the grass family, having awned flowers that grow in tightly bunched spikes, with three small additional spikes at each node.

2. the grain of this plant, used as food and in making beer, ale, and whiskey.

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barley ² American  

[bahr-lee] / ˈbɑr li /

noun

Scot. and North England.

• barleys
  plural

1. a truce or quarter, especially in children's games; parley.

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barley ¹ British  

/ ˈbɑːlɪ /

noun

1. any of various erect annual temperate grasses of the genus Hordeum , esp H. vulgare , that have short leaves and dense bristly flower spikes and are widely cultivated for grain and forage

2. the grain of any of these grasses, used in making beer and whisky and for soups, puddings, etc See also pearl barley

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barley ² British  

/ ˈbɑːlɪ /

1. dialect a cry for truce or respite from the rules of a game

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• barleys
  plural

Etymology

Origin of barley¹

before 1000; Middle English; Old English bærlīc (adj.), equivalent to bær- (variant of bere barley; akin to Old Norse barr barley, Gothic barizeins made of barley, Serbo-Croatian brȁšno flour, Latin far emmer; all < European Indo-European *bHaer- spike, prickle, perhaps akin to beard ) + -līc -ly

Origin of barley²

1805–15; probably to be identified with Scots barley, burley, birlie local customary law (Compare birleyman arbiter, birleycourt neighborhood court), variant of birlaw, Medieval Latin birlawe, birelegia, birelag < Old Norse *býjarlagu, equivalent to býjar, genitive singular of býr town ( cf. bower ¹, byre) + *lagu law ¹; compare bylaw ( def. )

Explanation

Barley is a grain that's related to the grass family and is used in many foods and drinks. Barley is used all over the world and is most commonly found in breads, breakfast cereals, soups, and stews. Barley is the fourth largest crop grown in the world. It's used to feed grazing livestock, eaten as a whole grain, milled into flour for baking, and dried to make malt, an ingredient in both beer and whisky. The Old English root of barley is bærlic, most likely from a Proto-Indo-European source that means "bristle, point, or projection."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

barley barleys

Rozel Shrestha, 12, set fire to a tiny effigy made of straw and barley, representing his missing father, at Kathmandu's Pashupati temple on the banks of the Bagmati river.

From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026

Corn remained supported by strong demand and tighter supplies in Brazil and the U.S., while sorghum and barley increased mainly due to spillover effects.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

People appear to have shifted back toward more traditional crops such as wheat and barley during the later stages of the Late Bronze Age.

From Science Daily ● May 19, 2026

Many of the raw ingredients used to make beer, including barley, wheat and brewer's yeast, contain vitamin B6 and the brewing process doesn't kill it all off, research suggests.

From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2026

Those wild cereal harvests were precursors to the domestication of the earliest crops, the cereals wheat and barley, in the Fertile Crescent.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

Radiation has been used to breed high-yield barleys, leaf-spot-resistant peanuts; radioisotope tracers have shown the way to more effective use of fertilizers.

From Time Magazine Archive

Some of those related beans and barleys were indeed domesticated independently in the Americas or China, far from the early site of domestication in the Fertile Crescent.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

This conclusion is not entirely in agreement with the results which have been obtained by others upon foreign beers, in the preparation of which low protein barleys have been used.

From A Study Of American Beers and Ales by L. M. Tolman

The barleys are chiefly used for human food with or without rice.

From The Foundations of Japan Notes Made During Journeys Of 6,000 Miles In The Rural Districts As A Basis For A Sounder Knowledge Of The Japanese People by J.W. Robertson Scott

Beddoes had mastered the 'Open, Sesame' at an age when most poets are still mouthing ineffectual wheats and barleys.

From Books and Characters French and English by Giles Lytton Strachey

Related Words

• corn
• fodder
• forage
• grain
• hay
• meal