Mil"let (?), n. [F., dim. of mil, L. milium; akin to Gr. , 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.
-- all species in this note are subtypes --
Arabian millet is Sorghum Halepense. --
Egyptian 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 tail grass growing in woods.
© Webster 1913.