meal1
/miːl
/- Already they knew the food for the evening meal was ready.
- You can try adding the medicine to a small amount of food and giving it to your cat before her regular meal.
- They had gotten used to fairly regular meals since moving here, and he wanted to keep it that way.
- Here, cooks will prepare a light meal of mixed salad, tinned cold fish or meat, bread and cheese and fruit.
- This includes the lecture, wine and a light meal of French bread, salami and cheese.
- My mom would enjoy cooking those favourite healthy meals of hers in it.
Phrases
make a meal of
meals on wheels
Origin
Old English mǣl (also in the sense 'measure', surviving in words such as piecemeal 'measure taken at one time'), of Germanic origin. The early sense of meal involved a notion of ‘fixed time’; compare with Dutch maal 'meal, (portion of) time' and German Mal 'time', Mahl 'meal', from an Indo-European root meaning 'to measure'.
Meal meaning ‘the edible part of any grain or pulse’ goes back to an ancient root shared with Latin molere ‘to grind’, which shares a root with mill. The meal at which food is eaten has a root meaning ‘to measure’. In Old English meal also meant ‘a measure’, a use which survives in piecemeal (Middle English) ‘a bit at a time’. The expression to make a meal of dates from the early 17th century in the sense ‘to take advantage of’, but the notion ‘to make something unduly laborious’ goes back only to the 1960s. The idea behind mealy-mouthed, ‘afraid to speak frankly or straightforwardly’, is of a person having their mouth full of meal and so being afraid to open it fully. It is first recorded in the 1570s, and probably comes from an old German proverb.
Rhymes
meal2
/miːl/- The examples compare corn silage to alfalfa hay, ‘normal’ silage, and corn grain plus soybean meal.
- A conventional soybean expeller saw an opportunity, became certified and started producing organic soybean meal and soy oil.
- Frequently, ground limestone is added to processed soybean meal to improve its flowability.
- ‘Even if the maize meal is available locally, the problem is that the price is too expensive,’ said Meygag.
- Although both soft and hard maize can be used for the manufacture of this meal, soft maize is prevalent in the region as it is grown more widely and is therefore more affordable.
- In July 1988, Britain banned the feeding of cattle with meal containing the ground-up remains of cows, in order to halt the spread of BSE.
Origin
Old English melu, meolo, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch meel and German Mehl, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin molere 'to grind'.