Millet

Pronunciation

• GenAm IPA: /ˈmɪlɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɪlɪt

From French millet; ultimately from Latin milium,

from Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- ("to grind, crush"), see also Ancient Greek μελίνη (melinē, "millet") and Lithuanian málnos ("millet").

Full definition of millet

Noun

1. Any of a group of various types of grass or its grains used as food, widely cultivated in the developing world.

Hyponyms

• (food grains) , , , Digitaria exilis, Echinochloa, Eleusine coracana, Eragrostis tef, , , , , , Setaria italica, Sorghum, ,

Coordinate terms

Derived terms

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈmɪlÉ›t/

From Turkish millet, from Ottoman Turkish ملت, from Persian ملت, from Arabic ملة.

Noun

1. (historical) A semi-autonomous confessional community under the Ottoman Empire, especially a non-Muslim one.
• 2007, Elizabeth Roberts, Realm of the Black Mountain, Hurst & Co. 2007, page 14:... in support for a common Serbian Orthodox Church, the one traditional institution permitted to exist under the Ottoman millet system which sought to rule subject peoples indirectly through their own religious hierarchies.
• 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, page 262:Christians and Jews as People of the Book ... were organized into separate communities, or millets, defined by their common practice of the same religion, which was guaranteed as protected as long as it was primarily practised in private.