-mealsuffix

Primary stress is retained by the usual stressed syllable of the preceding element.

Forms: Old English -mælum, Old English–Middle English -melum, late Old English -mæle, Middle English -malle, Middle English -meel, Middle English -meele, Middle English -mel, Middle English -melome, Middle English 1600s -male, Middle English–1600s -meale, Middle English–1600s -mele, 1500s– -meal.

Origin: A word inherited from Germanic.

Etymology: < a Germanic base (see meal n.²), forming compound adverbs. Originally a dative plural form of compounds of meal n.² used adverbially in the sense of ‘measure or quantity taken at one time’ (compare Old English cuclermǣl spoonful (as a measure), the dative plural of which would be *cuclermǣlum by spoonfuls), but already in Old English -mǣlum had come to be a mere suffix with the sense expressed in Latin by -ātim , -tim , and in modern English by the formula ‘—— by ——’, with repetition of the noun; almost all the Old English compounds of this formation actually attested do not occur in any other cases. There are no exactly parallel formations in other Germanic languages (but compare the German temporal multiplicative suffix -mal , as in einmal once, keinmal not once, zweimal twice, dreimal thrice, and similar forms, which is from the same Germanic base). Compare also meal n.² 1.Old English had such compounds as styccemǣlum bit by bit, gēarmǣlum year by year, scēafmǣlum sheaf by sheaf, stemmǣlum turn by turn, alternately, stæpmǣlum step by step, gradually, nammǣlum name by name; see also drop-meal adv., flock-meal adv., footmeal adv., heap-meal adv., limb-meal adv., stoundmeal adv. The suffix continued to be productive in Middle English, among the formations dating from that period being cantle-meal n. at cantle n. Compounds, cupmeal adv., gobbetmeal adv., littlemeal adv., parcelmeal adv., pennymeal adv., piecemeal adv., n., and adj., pound-meal adv., and the Latinisms ravishmeal adv. (Wyclif) ‘raptim’, tablemeal adv. ‘tabulatim’. A remarkable survival of the Old English inflection appears in Wyclif's hipyllmelum (see hipple n.). To the 16th cent. belong fit-meal adv. at fit n.² Compounds, inchmeal adv., jointmeal adv., lumpmeal adv.; in later English the suffix has not been productive, though words such as pagemeal adv. have occasionally been formed, more or less playfully. A trace of the originally substantival character of the suffix remains in the use of by piecemeal at piecemeal n. 1, as a synonym of the simple adverb (compare the obsolete by flockmeal (see flock-meal adv.), by pennymeal (see pennymeal n.), etc.).

Forming adverbs (all obsolete except piecemeal adv.) from nouns, with the sense ‘—— by ——’.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2001; most recently modified version published online December 2020).

单词	-meal
释义	-mealsuffix Primary stress is retained by the usual stressed syllable of the preceding element. Forms: Old English -mælum, Old English–Middle English -melum, late Old English -mæle, Middle English -malle, Middle English -meel, Middle English -meele, Middle English -mel, Middle English -melome, Middle English 1600s -male, Middle English–1600s -meale, Middle English–1600s -mele, 1500s– -meal. Origin: A word inherited from Germanic. Etymology: < a Germanic base (see meal n.²), forming compound adverbs. Originally a dative plural form of compounds of meal n.² used adverbially in the sense of ‘measure or quantity taken at one time’ (compare Old English cuclermǣl spoonful (as a measure), the dative plural of which would be cuclermǣlum by spoonfuls), but already in Old English -mǣlum* had come to be a mere suffix with the sense expressed in Latin by -ātim , -tim , and in modern English by the formula ‘—— by ——’, with repetition of the noun; almost all the Old English compounds of this formation actually attested do not occur in any other cases. There are no exactly parallel formations in other Germanic languages (but compare the German temporal multiplicative suffix -mal , as in einmal once, keinmal not once, zweimal twice, dreimal thrice, and similar forms, which is from the same Germanic base). Compare also meal n.² 1.Old English had such compounds as styccemǣlum bit by bit, gēarmǣlum year by year, scēafmǣlum sheaf by sheaf, stemmǣlum turn by turn, alternately, stæpmǣlum step by step, gradually, nammǣlum name by name; see also drop-meal adv., flock-meal adv., footmeal adv., heap-meal adv., limb-meal adv., stoundmeal adv. The suffix continued to be productive in Middle English, among the formations dating from that period being cantle-meal n. at cantle n. Compounds, cupmeal adv., gobbetmeal adv., littlemeal adv., parcelmeal adv., pennymeal adv., piecemeal adv., n., and adj., pound-meal adv., and the Latinisms ravishmeal adv. (Wyclif) ‘raptim’, tablemeal adv. ‘tabulatim’. A remarkable survival of the Old English inflection appears in Wyclif's hipyllmelum (see hipple n.). To the 16th cent. belong fit-meal adv. at fit n.² Compounds, inchmeal adv., jointmeal adv., lumpmeal adv.; in later English the suffix has not been productive, though words such as pagemeal adv. have occasionally been formed, more or less playfully. A trace of the originally substantival character of the suffix remains in the use of by piecemeal at piecemeal n. 1, as a synonym of the simple adverb (compare the obsolete by flockmeal (see flock-meal adv.), by pennymeal (see pennymeal n.), etc.). Forming adverbs (all obsolete except piecemeal adv.) from nouns, with the sense ‘—— by ——’. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2001; most recently modified version published online December 2020). < suffix
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