Grainfield

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An area of farmland cultivated with cereal crops such as wheat, barley, or oats
2. A tract of land sown and harvested for grain, typically in large open stretches
3. Ground given over to growing cereals, often seen rippling in the wind across wide plains

Etymology: Grainfield is a plain compound: "grain" joined to "field." The first element comes from Latin "granum," meaning a grain or seed, which passed through Old French "grain" into Middle English as "greyn" before settling into the modern form. The second element goes back much further in the Germanic branch of the family, where the Proto-Germanic "felþuz" gave Old English "feld," meaning an open country or plain rather than the enclosed plot the word suggests today. The Latin "granum" traces to a Proto-Indo-European root that also gave rise to words for grain and corn across several languages, so the two halves of this word come from quite separate ancestral streams that happened to meet in English. Put together, the compound describes a field given over to cereal crops, and it is transparent enough that its meaning has never needed explaining.

Synonyms: cornfield