millet

Etymology 1

From late Middle English, borrowed from Middle French millet; from Latin milium, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to grind, crush”), see also Ancient Greek μελίνη (melínē, “millet”) and Lithuanian málnos (“millet”).

noun

1. Any of a group of various types of grass or its grains used as food, widely cultivated in the developing world.
2. (specifically) Common millet, in particular Panicum miliaceum.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish ملت (millet), from Arabic مِلَّة (milla).

noun

1. (historical) A semi-autonomous confessional community under the Ottoman Empire, especially a non-Muslim one. [from 19th c.]
   The special duties of these millet organizations are to care for the educational and other moral wants of the people […] 1880, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, page 963
   […] 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. 2007, Elizabeth Roberts, Realm of the Black Mountain, Hurst & Co, published 2007, page 14
   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. 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 262