SORGHUM

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Sorghum mean? 

• SORGHUM (noun)
  The noun SORGHUM has 3 senses:

1. economically important Old World tropical cereal grass

2. annual or perennial tropical and subtropical cereal grasses: sorghum

3. made from juice of sweet sorghum

  Familiarity information: SORGHUM used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SORGHUM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Economically important Old World tropical cereal grass

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("sorghum" is a kind of...):

millet (any of various small-grained annual cereal and forage grasses of the genera Panicum, Echinochloa, Setaria, Sorghum, and Eleusine)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sorghum"):

great millet; kaffir; kaffir corn; kafir corn; Sorghum bicolor (important for human and animal food; growth habit and stem form similar to Indian corn but having sawtooth-edged leaves)

grain sorghum (any of several sorghums cultivated primarily for grain)

sorgho; sorgo; sugar sorghum; sweet sorghum (any of several sorghums cultivated as a source of syrup)

Aleppo grass; evergreen millet; Johnson grass; means grass; Sorghum halepense (tall perennial grass that spreads by creeping rhizomes and is grown for fodder; naturalized in southern United States where it is a serious pest on cultivated land)

broomcorn; Sorghum vulgare technicum (tall grasses grown for the elongated stiff-branched panicle used for brooms and brushes)

Holonyms ("sorghum" is a member of...):

genus Sorghum; Sorghum (annual or perennial tropical and subtropical cereal grasses: sorghum)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Annual or perennial tropical and subtropical cereal grasses: sorghum

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

genus Sorghum; Sorghum

Hypernyms ("Sorghum" is a kind of...):

liliopsid genus; monocot genus (genus of flowering plants having a single cotyledon (embryonic leaf) in the seed)

Meronyms (members of "Sorghum"):

sorghum (economically important Old World tropical cereal grass)

Holonyms ("Sorghum" is a member of...):

family Graminaceae; family Gramineae; family Poaceae; Graminaceae; Gramineae; grass family; Poaceae (the grasses: chiefly herbaceous but some woody plants including cereals; bamboo; reeds; sugar cane)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Made from juice of sweet sorghum

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Synonyms:

sorghum; sorghum molasses

Hypernyms ("sorghum" is a kind of...):

sirup; syrup (a thick sweet sticky liquid)

 Context examples 

The compound sorgoleone, secreted by sorghum, helps the plant combat weeds.

(Transferring Sorghum’s Weed-Killing Power to Rice, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

Better understanding of the phenomenon’s effect on crops could help farmers diversify to more adaptable crops such as tuber vegetables or sorghum, and adopt farming practices to cope with fluctuating weather patterns.

(El Niño linked to widespread crop failures, SciDev.Net)

India grows a variety of coarse grains — including sorghum, pearl millet, maize, barley, and finger millet — as well as many ‘small millets’ such as kodo millet, little millet, foxtail millet, proso millet, and barnyard millet.

(Course grains better than rice for health, environment, SciDev.Net)

The next step is to see if rice plants grown in the laboratory will produce sorgoleone as they grow and have the same weed-fighting ability as sorghum.

(Transferring Sorghum’s Weed-Killing Power to Rice, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

They also stopped sorghum plants from producing sorgoleone, which would benefit farmers who want to rotate different crops with sorghum.

(Transferring Sorghum’s Weed-Killing Power to Rice, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

In earlier studies, the researchers successfully increased sorgoleone to make sorghum more resistant to weeds, which would help growers who do not rotate sorghum with other crops.

(Transferring Sorghum’s Weed-Killing Power to Rice, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

Scientists at ARS’s Natural Product Utilization Research Unit (NPURU) in Oxford, Mississippi, are investigating whether sorghum’s weed-inhibiting properties can be transferred to other crops like rice and used as a bioherbicide.

(Transferring Sorghum’s Weed-Killing Power to Rice, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have transferred a biochemical pathway found in sorghum, which produces a weed-killing compound, into rice plants.

(Transferring Sorghum’s Weed-Killing Power to Rice, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

It works so well that some other crops struggle to grow in fields where sorghum has been raised, causing problems for growers who want to rotate different crops in those fields.

(Transferring Sorghum’s Weed-Killing Power to Rice, U.S. Department of Agriculture)