# piecemeal

Pronunciation: say "PEES-meel" /ˈpiːs.miːl/

## Adjective

1. Carried out or put together bit by bit, in separate stages rather than as a whole.
   - Simple: Done in small parts, one step at a time, not all at once.
   - _The city's piecemeal approach to road repairs has left half the streets torn up._
   - _Funding for the clinic arrived on a piecemeal basis, a few thousand dollars at a time._

## Adverb

2. Bit by bit, in small amounts, stages, or degrees.
   - Simple: A little at a time, in small parts or steps.
   - _After the owner's death, the estate was broken up and sold off piecemeal._
   - _Details of the deal leaked out piecemeal over the following month._

## Noun

3. A small fragment or scrap of something. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A small broken piece of something.

## Other meanings

- (adverb) Into pieces or separate parts.
- (verb) To divide something into pieces or hand it out in parts; to dismember.

## Origin

Middle English pecemele joined pece ("piece") with mele, which came from Old English mǣlum, meaning "at a time," the dative plural of mǣl ("time, measure"). It replaced Old English styċċemǣlum, meaning "bit by bit, in pieces, little by little," and it matches piece + -meal.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/piecemeal (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).