Word.ws English Dictionary

barleycorns

barleycorns is the plural of barleycorn.

Meaning of barleycorn

Noun

barleycorn (plural barleycorns)

  1. A grain of barley.
    • The Town Mouse came, and they sat down to a dinner of barleycorns and roots, the latter of which had a distinctly earthy flavour.1912, V.S. Vernon Jones, Aesop's Fables
  2. (obsolete) The length of such a grain; a unit of length of approximately one third (or sometimes one quarter) of an inch or eight millimetres, still used as a basis for shoe sizes.
    • This trip to Italy has actually enlarged the diameter of my head thirteen barleycorns!1879, Geo. Alfred Townsend, Bohemian Days
  3. A small groove between two moldings.

Questions about barleycorns

What is barleycorns the plural of?
Barleycorns is the plural of barleycorn.

Words near barleycorns in the dictionary

  1. barleybreak
  2. barleybreaks
  3. barleycorn
  4. barleycorn sight
  5. barleycorn sights
  6. barleycorns
  7. barleyfield
  8. barleyfields
  9. barleyhood
  10. barleylike
  11. barleymeal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: barleycorns (page history and authors); barleycorn (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “barleycorns.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/barleycorns. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.