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—grainer, n. —grainless, adj./grayn/, n.1. a small, hard seed, esp. the seed of a food plant such as wheat, corn, rye, oats, rice, or millet.2. the gathered seed of food plants, esp. of cereal plants.3. such plants collectively.4. any small, hard particle, as of sand, gold, pepper, or gunpowder.5. the smallest unit of weight in most systems, originally determined by the weight of a plump grain of wheat. In the U.S. and British systems, as in avoirdupois, troy, and apothecaries' weights, the grain is identical. In an avoirdupois ounce there are 437.5 grains; in the troy and apothecaries' ounces there are 480 grains (one grain equals 0.0648 gram).6. the smallest possible amount of anything: a grain of truth.7. the arrangement or direction of fibers in wood, or the pattern resulting from this.8. the direction in which the fibers of a piece of dressed wood, as a board, rise to the surface: You should work with or across the grain, but never against.9. the side of leather from which the hair has been removed.10. a stamped pattern that imitates the natural grain of leather: used either on leather to simulate a different type of natural leather, or on coated cloth.11. Textiles.a. the fibers or yarn in a piece of fabric as differentiated from the fabric itself.b. the direction of threads in a woven fabric in relation to the selvage.12. the lamination or cleavage of stone, coal, etc.13. Metall. any of the individual crystalline particles forming a metal.14. Jewelry. a unit of weight equal to 50 milligrams or 1/4 carat, used for pearls and sometimes for diamonds.15. the size of constituent particles of any substance; texture: sugar of fine grain.16. a granular texture or appearance: a stone of coarse grain.17. a state of crystallization: boiled to the grain.18. temper or natural character: two brothers of similar grain.19. Rocketry. a unit of solid propellant.20. Obs. color or hue.21. against the or one's grain, in opposition to one's temper, inclination, or character: Haggling always went against her grain.v.t.23. to form into grains; granulate.24. to give a granular appearance to.25. to paint in imitation of the grain of wood, stone, etc.: metal doors grained to resemble oak.26. to feed grain to (an animal).27. Tanning.a. to remove the hair from (skins).b. to soften and raise the grain of (leather).Syn. 6. bit, speck, trace, jot, iota, whit, tittle.
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▪ in solidsin metallurgy, any of the crystallites (small crystals or grains) of varying, randomly distributed, small sizes that compose a solid metal. Randomly oriented, the grains contact each other at surfaces called grain boundaries. The structure and size of the grains determine important physical properties of the solid metal. Grains of a metal ingot can be elongated and locked together by rolling to improve the mechanical properties in the direction of grain length. Internal stresses at grain boundaries may be relieved by annealing to restore exhausted ductility in certain alloys or to harden other alloys.▪ unit of weightunit of weight equal to 0.065 gram, or 1/7,000 pound avoirdupois. One of the earliest units of common measure and the smallest, it is a uniform unit in the avoirdupois (avoirdupois weight), apothecaries' (apothecaries' weight), and troy (troy weight) systems. The ancient grain, varying from one culture to the next, was defined as the weight of a designated number of dry wheat (or other edible grain) kernels taken from the middle of the ear. It was also used as the original basis for the medieval English inch, which was defined for instructional purposes as the length of 3 medium-sized barleycorns placed end to end (about 2.54 cm). The Sumerian shekel equaled the weight of 180 wheat grains; the British silver penny sterling was set at the weight of 32 wheat grains. The metric grain of 50 mg is used to weigh precious stones.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
