rye

noun

• 1a wheat-like cereal plant which tolerates poor soils and low temperatures.

  • Secale cereale, family Gramineae
• grains of rye, used mainly for making bread or whisky, and for fodder: [as modifier]:rye flour

• 2 (also rye whisky) whisky in which a significant amount of the grain used in distillation is fermented rye:half a bottle of rye

• 3chiefly North Americanshort for rye bread.pastrami on rye