wheat
Americannoun
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the grain of any cereal grass of the genus Triticum, especially T. aestivum, used in the form of flour for making bread, cakes, etc., and for other culinary and nutritional purposes.
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the plant itself.
noun
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any annual or biennial grass of the genus Triticum, native to the Mediterranean region and W Asia but widely cultivated, having erect flower spikes and light brown grains
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the grain of any of these grasses, used in making flour, pasta, etc
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of wheat
before 900; Middle English whete, Old English hwǣte; cognate with German Weizen, Old Norse hveiti, Gothic hwaiteis; akin to white
Explanation
Wheat is the grain most commonly used in things like bread, pasta, and cake. When wheat is ground, it becomes flour you can use for baking. Who wants cupcakes? A field of wheat looks like tall, green grasses — the wheat turns golden-colored when it's ready to be harvested. More farmland is planted with wheat than any other crop, as it's a major worldwide source of carbohydrates. Some people are sensitive or allergic to the gluten in wheat, but most of us can safely eat and enjoy the many foods made from wheat. The Germanic source means "that which is white," from a root meaning "to shine."
Vocabulary lists containing wheat
Yellow
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Brown
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Rather than send wheat to Minneapolis to be processed, incurring high transportation costs, farmers and the state banded together to form the North Dakota Mill, the only state-owned mill in the United States.
From Salon ● Jul. 26, 2026
Put this all together and farmers — mainly large-scale row-crop producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice and peanuts — are already set to receive roughly $55 billion from the U.S.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
Spermidine is produced naturally by human cells and is also present in foods including wheat germ, mushrooms, parmesan, and cheddar.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026
More than 100 farms have been involved in the scheme, including Bedfordshire-based wheat farmer Charles Paynter.
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026
By treating wheat strains with such “shock therapy,” Lysenko argued that he could make the plants flower more vigorously in the spring and yield higher bounties of grain through the summer.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
