means A hardy cereal grass and its grain, used to make dark bread, whiskey, and animal feed, prized for thriving in poor soils and cold climates.

from From Old English 'ryge,' a word with deep Germanic roots — relatives include Old Norse 'rugr' and Dutch 'rogge' — and likely cousins farther afield in the Slavic and Baltic languages, hinting that rye traveled with northern peoples who needed a grain tough enough for hungry ground. The whiskey sense is simply the grain lending its name to the spirit distilled from it.