In the Odyssean cento I worked on last night I used the word grain in a potentially odd way, and today I worried about it. So I decided to consult the Oxford English Dictionary's entry on grain--and hurrah. I didn't know that grain used to be used to refer to dye, especially red dyes. That makes my use of it in the cento even better and not odd at all.
Though I still have my 2-volume compact OED (which my father got for me back in the 1980s by joining a book club so he'd receive it as a welcome gift), I love using the online OED nowadays. I'm so grateful that my school has a subscription to it.
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