Other forms: cereals
Cereal is the crunchy little pieces you pour milk over at breakfast. A bowl of cereal, breakfast cereal, cereal crops.
The word also means the grain crops themselves — wheat, rice, maize — and those three provide most of the calories humans eat. Breakfast cereal was invented as a health food and became a sugar business. Note the spelling against serial; and that the name comes from Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture.
1nouncerealA breakfast food of processed grain.
“She poured milk over her cereal and ate it standing up.”
2nouncropA grain crop.
“Wheat, barley and oats are the main cereals grown in this region.”
cereal is a food.
French cereale comes from Latin Cerealis, of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and grain.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱer- — grow
Latin
Cerealis — of or relating to Ceres
French
céréale — having to do with cereal
English, today
cereal
Built from
French céréale (“having to do with cereal”), from Latin Cerealis (“of or relating to Ceres”), from Ceres (“Roman goddess of agriculture”), from Proto-Indo-European ḱer- (“grow”), from which also Latin sincerus (English sincere) and Latin crēscō (“grow”) (English crescent). The adjective is equivalent to Cere(s) + -al.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA