Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The edible whole or coarsely ground grains of a cereal grass.
  • noun A granular substance produced by grinding.
  • noun The food served and eaten in one sitting.
  • noun A customary time or occasion of eating food.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To grind into meal or the state of meal; pulverize: as, mealed powder.—2. To sprinkle with meal, or mix meal with.
  • To yield or produce meal; be productive in meal: applied to grain: as, the barley does not meal well this year.
  • Apparently, to defile or taint.
  • noun The edible part of any kind of grain or pulse ground to a powder or flour; flour: as, oatmeal, bean-meal.
  • noun Specifically— In the United States, ground maize: more fully called Indian meal and corn-meal.
  • noun In Scotland and Ireland, oatmeal.
  • noun Any substance resembling the meal of grain or pulse; especially, any coarsely ground substance.
  • noun A sand-heap.
  • noun The supply of food taken at one time for the relief of hunger; a provision of food (formerly of drink also) for one or more persons or animals for a single occasion, as at a customary time of eating; the substance of a repast; a breakfast, dinner, or supper: with reference to domestic animals, more commonly called a feed.
  • noun The taking or ingestion of a supply of food; an eating; a refection or repast.
  • noun The milk which a cow yields at one milking. Also called mcltith.
  • To apportion food to; provide with meals or food; feed; fodder.
  • noun A speck or spot.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A part; a fragment; a portion.
  • transitive verb To sprinkle with, or as with, meal.
  • transitive verb To pulverize.
  • noun The portion of food taken at a particular time for the satisfaction of appetite; the quantity usually taken at one time with the purpose of satisfying hunger; a repast; the act or time of eating a meal
  • noun Grain (esp. maize, rye, or oats) that is coarsely ground and unbolted; also, a kind of flour made from beans, pease, etc.; sometimes, any flour, esp. if coarse.
  • noun Any substance that is coarsely pulverized like meal, but not granulated.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the adult of the meal worm. See Meal worm, below.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a lepidopterous insect (Asopia farinalis), the larvæ of which feed upon meal, flour, etc.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the larva of a beetle (Tenebrio molitor) which infests granaries, bakehouses, etc., and is very injurious to flour and meal.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The coarse-ground edible part of various grains often used to feed animals; flour.
  • noun Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time (e.g. breakfast = morning meal, lunch = noon meal, etc).
  • noun A speck or spot.
  • verb transitive To defile or taint.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the food served and eaten at one time
  • noun any of the occasions for eating food that occur by custom or habit at more or less fixed times
  • noun coarsely ground foodstuff; especially seeds of various cereal grasses or pulse

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English mele, from Old English melu; see melə- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English mele, from Old English mǣl; see mē- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English mele, from Old English melu ("meal, flour"), from Proto-Germanic *melwan (“meal, flour”), from Proto-Indo-European *mel-, *mol(w)ə- (“to grind, mill”). Cognate with West Frisian moal, Dutch meel, German Mehl, Albanian miell, Old Church Slavonic melvo ("grain to be ground"), Dutch malen ("to grind"), German mahlen ("to grind"), Old Irish melim ("I grind"), Latin molō ("I grind"), Tocharian A/B malywët ("you press")/melye ("they tread on"), Lithuanian málti, Old Church Slavonic млѣти (mlěti), Ancient Greek μύλη (mýlē, "mill"). More at mill.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English mǣl ("measure, time, occasion, set time, time for eating, meal"), from Proto-Germanic *mēlan, from Proto-Indo-European *mē-, *me- (“to measure”). Cognate with Dutch maal ("meal, time, occurrence"), German Mal ("time"), Mahl ("meal"), Swedish mål ("meal"); and (from Indo-European) with Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron, "measure"), Latin mensus, Russian мера (mera, "measure"), Lithuanian mẽtas. Related to Old English mǣþ ("measure, degree, proportion").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Variation of mole (compare Scots mail), from Middle English mole, mool, from Old English māl, mǣl ("spot, mark, blemish"), from Proto-Germanic *mailan (“wrinkle, spot”), from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“to soil”). More at mole.

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Examples

  • Three main types of maize meal are marketed in developing countries: whole meal; partly de-germed meal (i.e. meal from which part of the bran and germ has been removed) which is designated under various names (e.g. partly sifted meal, bolted meal, roller meal (Zambia)); and fully de-germed meal from which most of the bran and germ have been removed and which is also designated as “super-sifted meal”.

    Chapter 4 1984

  • With such a cultural diversity, the meal is a mouthwatering blend of Asian, Italian, Indian and American treats that push the stresses of the hospital to the side and tightens the bonds between colleagues used to unrelenting stress.

    Kari Henley: Family Meals: The Forgotten Ritual Kari Henley 2010

  • While this meal is an extreme example of culinary excess, its description is a good preparation for accounts of the food traditions that developed during the Viceregal period and on into the nineteenth century in Mexico.

    The Mexican kitchen: a taste for all seasons 2009

  • With such a cultural diversity, the meal is a mouthwatering blend of Asian, Italian, Indian and American treats that push the stresses of the hospital to the side and tightens the bonds between colleagues used to unrelenting stress.

    Kari Henley: Family Meals: The Forgotten Ritual Kari Henley 2010

  • While this meal is an extreme example of culinary excess, its description is a good preparation for accounts of the food traditions that developed during the Viceregal period and on into the nineteenth century in Mexico.

    The Mexican kitchen: a taste for all seasons 2009

  • With such a cultural diversity, the meal is a mouthwatering blend of Asian, Italian, Indian and American treats that push the stresses of the hospital to the side and tightens the bonds between colleagues used to unrelenting stress.

    Kari Henley: Family Meals: The Forgotten Ritual Kari Henley 2010

  • With such a cultural diversity, the meal is a mouthwatering blend of Asian, Italian, Indian and American treats that push the stresses of the hospital to the side and tightens the bonds between colleagues used to unrelenting stress.

    Kari Henley: Family Meals: The Forgotten Ritual Kari Henley 2010

  • With such a cultural diversity, the meal is a mouthwatering blend of Asian, Italian, Indian and American treats that push the stresses of the hospital to the side and tightens the bonds between colleagues used to unrelenting stress.

    Kari Henley: Family Meals: The Forgotten Ritual Kari Henley 2010

  • While this meal is an extreme example of culinary excess, its description is a good preparation for accounts of the food traditions that developed during the Viceregal period and on into the nineteenth century in Mexico.

    The Mexican kitchen: a taste for all seasons 2009

  • But at the same time, I can't help but relate its title to Burroughs 'THE NAKED LUNCH, and parse it as an image of confrontation with reality, an image of that moment of recognition that the "simulacra" of a meal is actually the "objective reality" of a dead animal. posted by Hal Duncan | 5: 02 AM

    Archive 2008-08-01 Hal Duncan 2008

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