a variety of wheat, Triticum dicoccum, grown in mountainous parts of Europe as a cereal crop and for livestock food: thought to be an ancestor of many other varieties of wheat
Word origin
C20: from German; related to Old High German amari spelt
emmer in American English
(ˈɛmər)
noun
any of a group of wheat species having 14 pairs of chromosomes, esp. a wild species (Triticum dicoccum) having a spike broken up into segments and grains that do not thresh free of the chaff