noun

1. Now Dial. a tiny, hard particle, as of salt or sand; granule; grain
2. a small, hard seed or seedlike fruit, esp. a seed or grain of a cereal grass; kernel: now chiefly in compounds, as peppercorn, barleycorn
3. ☆
   1. a cultivated American cereal plant (Zea mays) of the grass family, with the grain borne on cobs enclosed in husks; maize
   2. the ears or kernels of this cereal plant
4. Brit.
   1. the seeds of all cereal grasses, as wheat, rye, barley, etc.; grain
   2. any plant or plants producing grain
5. the leading cereal crop in a particular place, as wheat in England or oats in Scotland and Ireland
6. Informal corn whiskey
7. ☆ Informal ideas, humor, music, etc. regarded as old-fashioned, trite, banal, or sentimental

Etymology: ME & OE < IE base *ger-, to ripen, mature, grow old > grain, churn, Gr gerōn, old man

transitive verb

1. to form into granules
2. to preserve or pickle with salt granules or in brine
3. to feed grain to (animals)

noun

Etymology: ME & OFr corne < L cornu, horn