meal
Pluralmeals
Pluralmeals
- 1Food prepared and eaten on one occasion, usually at a regular time of day and more substantial than a snack; also, the occasion of eating it.
After the long hike, they sat down to a hot meal at the lodge.
Many people plan their meals for the week every Sunday.
UsageYou have or eat a meal, and make or cook one.
- 2Grain or other seeds ground into a powder or small particles for food or animal feed, sometimes coarser than flour; also, any similar powdery or granular substance.
The recipe calls for two cups of coarse rye meal.
Mills along the river once ground the region's barley into meal.
UsageOften preceded by the grain or source, such as almond meal, rye meal, or bone meal.
Similarflour
Note
Old English melu meant both "meal" and "flour", and that overlap has never fully settled. In some usage meal is simply flour; in other usage it names a coarser grind.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Old English melu meant both meal and flour. en.wiktionary.org
- 3
Less common meanings
- 4A time or an occasion.
Ye wolde wepe at every mele; But for my sone wepe ye never a dele. You would weep at every meal, but for my son you never weep a deal.
The Lamentation of the Virgin Mary (MS. Cantab., Ff. ii., 38c1500, In A Chyrchː Thou couth well weep at every meal.
Note
The oldest layer of the word, the "set time" that the eating sense narrowed from. Middle English "at every mele" means "on every occasion". Henry Lovelich's "a sory Mele" is a sorry occasion, not a bad dinner. Modern readers easily take such lines as being about food, so in older texts check whether anyone is actually eating.
- 5To defile or taint.
Were he meal'd with that / Which he corrects, than were he tyrannous.
c. 1603, William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”Similardefile, taint, sully, soil, tarnish
Note
The verb that belongs with the speck sense, and its root meaning "to soil" still shows through: to meal something is to stain it. Shakespeare uses it in Measure for Measure, "Were he meal'd with that / Which he corrects", for someone tainted by the very fault he punishes. It takes a direct object, and in that line the passive carries the moral weight.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- The verb belongs to the same etymological entry as the speck noun, means to defile or taint, and is transitive. en.wiktionary.org
- Its reconstructed root means to soil. en.wiktionary.org
- Shakespeare uses the quoted wording in Measure for Measure; the Duke speaks it in Act IV, scene ii. gutenberg.org
- The quotation describes someone hypothetically tainted by the fault he punishes and uses a passive construction. gutenberg.org
- 6Of grain, to give a generous yield of meal.
Of course the yield of grain was small, but much greater than could have been expected; and, the ears being well filled, it mealed well. The pastures were burnt up, so that there was nothing left for the cattle to eat.
1876, Notes and QueriesNote
A harvest verb built straight from the ground-grain noun. The grain is the subject, and it meals well or poorly. It takes no object, so you never meal the barley. Notes and Queries still uses it in 1876 ("the ears being well filled, it mealed well"). Today it reads as obsolete, and yield is the safe modern choice.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- The yield verb belongs to the ground-grain noun's etymological family. en.wiktionary.org
- In this sense, grain is the subject and the verb is intransitive. en.wiktionary.org
- Notes and Queries published the quoted wording in 1876; it appears in John Carrie's contribution on page 73 of fifth-series volume 6. archive.org
- 7A period during a police officer’s shift set aside for eating.
- 8A speck or spot.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Proto-Indo-European *meh₁- ("to measure") is the root behind Proto-Germanic *mēlą and Old English mǣl, which could mean "measure, time, occasion" or a "set time for eating." That became Middle English mel. German Mahl ("meal") and Mal ("time") are related, as are words for "measure" such as Ancient Greek métron and Latin mensus.
The root *melh₂- ("to grind, mill") in Proto-Indo-European led to Proto-Germanic *melwą and Old English melu ("meal, flour"), which became Middle English mele. German Mehl and Dutch meel are cognates, and Latin molō ("I grind") and Ancient Greek múlē ("mill") are related.
This is a variant of mole (compare Scots mail). The chain runs back from Middle English mole to Old English māl, mǣl, which meant a "spot, mark, blemish." That came from *mailą ("wrinkle, spot") in Proto-Germanic and ultimately from *mey- ("to soil"), a Proto-Indo-European root.