Barley is a tough grain used in soups and in brewing. Pearl barley, a field of barley, barley wine.
It grows where wheat will not — colder, drier, poorer ground — which is why it fed northern Europe for so long. Nearly all beer and most whisky start with it, because malting it releases the enzymes that turn starch into sugar.
1nounbarleyA tough grain used in soups and brewing.
“Add a handful of barley to the soup to make it thicker.”
barley is a grain.
Old English baerlic means barley-like, from bere, barley. Barn is bere plus aern, a house — a barley house.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰers- — spike, prickle
Proto-Germanic
*baraz
Old English
bærlīċ — barley-like
Middle English
barly
English, today
barley
Built from
From Middle English barly, barli, from Old English bærlīċ (“barley-like”) (later referring to barley itself and grain crops of similar appearance), from bere (“barley”) (compare Scots bere (“six-rowed barley”)), from Proto-Germanic baraz (compare Old Norse barr), from Proto-Indo-European bʰers- (“spike, prickle”). Equivalent to bere + ly. See English brew.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA