Mil″let (mĭl″lĕt), n. [F., dim. of mil, L. milium; akin to Gr. μελίνη, AS. mil.] (Bot.) The name of several cereal and forage grasses which bear an abundance of small roundish grains. The common millets of Germany and Southern Europe are Panicum miliaceum, and Setaria Italica.
☞ Arabian millet is Sorghum Halepense. — Egyptian or East Indian, millet is Penicillaria spicata. — Indian millet is Sorghum vulgare. (See under Indian.) — Italian millet is Setaria Italica, a coarse, rank-growing annual grass, valuable for fodder when cut young, and bearing nutritive seeds; — called also Hungarian grass. — Texas millet is Panicum Texanum. — Wild millet, orMillet grass, is Milium effusum, a tall grass growing in woods.