Granola
/ɡrəˈnoʊ.lə/noun
A breakfast food made from rolled oats, nuts, seeds, and sweetener, baked until crisp.
Did you know?Granola was created in the late 1800s as a commercial health food, and its name was deliberately modeled on earlier products like granula and muesli-style breakfast branding rather than any old mystical root.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*ǵr̥h₂-no-
“A grain or kernel; the ancestral root behind many English grain-words.”
Latin
Latin
granum
“A grain, seed, or small particle.”
19th Century
English
granula
“A baked cereal food made from grains, coined as a product name.”
Late 19th Century
English
granola
“A commercial breakfast food name, formed as a playful variant of granula.”
Modern English
English
granola
“A breakfast cereal or snack made from oats, nuts, and sweeteners, often baked until crisp.”