inchmeal
/ˈɪnt͡ʃ.miːl/
inchmeal adverb: gradually, little by little (an inch at a time).
Adverb
inchmeal (not comparable)
- Gradually, little by little (an inch at a time).
- All the infections that the sun sucks up / From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him / By inch-meal a disease!1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
- Those who are not thus slippery in the tail, are light of finger; and of these the most pernicious are those who beggar you inchmeal.1725, Daniel Defoe, Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business
Examples of inchmeal in a sentence
- I am a sanguinary murderer of time, and would kill him inchmeal just now.1822, Charles and Mary Lamb, The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6):
- He could be as patient as Death, that inchmeal stalker of his prey; he could be as ruthless as the sea, and incredibly generous upon occasion.1901, Maurice Hewlett, The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay:
Forms of inchmeal
| alternative form | inch-meal |
|---|
Origin of inchmeal
From inch + -meal.
Questions about inchmeal
- What does inchmeal mean?
- Inchmeal means gradually, little by little (an inch at a time).
- How do you use inchmeal in a sentence?
- I am a sanguinary murderer of time, and would kill him inchmeal just now.
- What part of speech is inchmeal?
- Inchmeal is an adverb.
- How do you pronounce inchmeal?
- Inchmeal is pronounced /ˈɪnt͡ʃ.miːl/.
Words near inchmeal in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: inchmeal (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “inchmeal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/inchmeal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.