Sorgho

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A tall grass plant grown for its edible grain and used for food, animal feed, and syrup production
2. A cereal crop with clustered seeds at the top of the stalk, cultivated in warm regions for grain and other products
3. A grain-bearing plant similar to corn, with dense seed heads, harvested for food, livestock feed, and industrial uses

Etymology: Sorghum is a cereal grass whose name travelled a long way before reaching English through French. The word "sorgho" entered French from Italian, where "sorgo" was the name for the plant, and the Italian form is itself a version of a much older word for the grain. English took the French spelling "sorgho" and the Latinized "sorghum" in parallel, so the two now sit side by side as doublets, forms of one word that arrived by different routes. The result is that English speakers have three spellings for the same plant: "sorghum", the most common in scientific and agricultural writing, "sorgo", which follows the Italian, and "sorgho", which follows the French. Each one records a different moment of borrowing, and all trace back to the same Italian source.