Word.ws English Dictionary

meal

/ˈmiːl/

meal noun: food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity.

meal: food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large...
Image: Abdullanafih, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

meal (countable and uncountable, plural meals)

  1. (countable) Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity.
    • Breakfast is the morning meal, lunch is the noon meal, and dinner, or supper, is the evening meal.
    • c1450, Secreta Secretorumː
      He that will cast meal upon meal is not able to have (a) long life.
  2. (countable) Food served or eaten as a repast.
    • a1450, The Macro Playsː
      If thou wilt fare well at meat and meal, come and follow me.
    • This is the meal pleasantly set . . . . this is the meat and drink for natural hunger, / It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous . . . .1855 July 4, Walt Whitman, “[Song of Myself]”, in Leaves of Grass, Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.: [James and Andrew Rome], →OCLC, page 25
  3. (informal, uncountable) A break taken by a police officer in order to eat.
    • They [tape recorders] can be turned off while officers are on meal or in the car to protect their private conversations […]1994, Brooklyn Barrister, volume 46, page 13
    • “I was on meal when I heard the call on the radio and recognized the address. What the hell?”2019, R. J. Noonan, In the Line of Fire
  4. (countable, obsolete) A 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., 38, fol. 47.), in: 1847, Thomas Wright (editor), The Chester Plays: A Collection of Mysteries founded upon scriptural Subjects, and formerly...
    • […] by occasion whereoff thai woll than at every mele groche with the kinge […]
      […] by occasion whereof they will, then at every meal, grouch with the king […]a1400?-a1470?, in: 1999/2006, The Governance of England: Otherwise called The Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy. By Sir John Fortescue. A Revised Text edited with Introduction...

Noun (2)

meal (countable and uncountable, plural meals)

  1. The ground-up edible part of various grains, used as a basis of food or feed; either flour or a coarser blend than flour (usage varies).
    • Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to...2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4
  2. Any of various similarly granular materials prepared from other sources, such as bones or wood.
  3. Any of various other granular or powdery materials, either ground by humans or occurring in nature, named figuratively after a resemblance to grain meal.

Verb (1)

meal (third-person singular simple present meals, present participle mealing, simple past and past participle mealed)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To yield or be plentiful in 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 Queries, page 73

Noun (3)

meal (plural meals)

  1. (UK, dialectal) A speck or spot.
  2. A part; a fragment; a portion.

Verb (2)

meal (third-person singular simple present meals, present participle mealing, simple past and past participle mealed)

  1. (transitive) To defile or taint.
    • Were he meal'd with that / Which he corrects, than were he tyrannous.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

meal meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

meal in Hindi

food that is prepared and eaten
भोजन bhojan, जेमन jeman

meal in Tamil

food that is prepared and eaten
உணவு uṇavu, சாப்பாடு cāppāṭu
coarse-ground edible part of various grains
மாவு māvu

meal in Marathi

food that is prepared and eaten
भोजन bhojan, जेवण jevaṇ
coarse-ground edible part of various grains
पीठ pīṭh

meal in Urdu

meal, nutrition
کھادیہ khādya
More languagesFewer languages
meal in Bengali
হাজরি hajri
meal in Telugu
సాపాటు sāpāṭu, భోజనము bhōjanamu
meal in Malayalam
ഭക്ഷണം, ആഹാരം, ഊണ, ഉണറ്
meal in Kannada
ಆರೋಗಣೆ ārōgaṇe, ಹಿಟ್ಟು hiṭṭu
meal in Punjabi
ਰੋਟੀ roṭī
meal in Gujarati
ભોજન bhojan, રસોઈ rasoī, જમણ jamaṇ, ભાણું bhāṇũ
meal in Sanskrit
भोजन bhojana
meal in Assamese
সাঁজ xãz
meal in Nepali
भोजन bhojan, खाना khānā
meal in Arabic
وَجْبَة wajba, أكلة ʔakla
meal in Malay
makanan
meal in Indonesian
makanan
meal in Persian
غذا ġazâ
meal in Thai
อาหาร aa-hǎan, มื้อ mʉ́ʉ, แป้ง bpɛ̂ɛng
meal in Vietnamese
bữa, bữa cơm

Examples of meal in a sentence

  • Ere we will eate our Meale in feare, and ſleepe / In the affliction of theſe terrible Dreames, / That ſhake vs Nightly: […]c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […]...
  • But I must and will finde him assoone as I may: and rather at a meale, then otherwise, because I would haue meanes, to participat at large, about our Collation: […]1606 February 25, Tho[mas] Bodley, “149⁠”, in G[eorge] W[ilson] Wheeler, editor, Letters of Sir Thomas Bodley to Thomas James, First Keeper...
  • After the meal, he rinsed the cans they had eaten from (marveling again at his own water extravagance), and when he turned around, Jake was asleep again.1981 February, Stephen King, “The Oracle and the Mountains”, in Edward L[ewis] Ferman, editor, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction...
  • With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.2013 July-August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:

All 40 example sentences with meal

Synonyms of meal

Forms of meal

Noun
pluralmeals
Verb
third-person singular presentmeals
present participlemealing
past participlemealed
pastmealed

Plural of meal: meals

Origin of meal

From Middle English mel, from Old English mǣl (“measure, time, occasion, set time, time for eating, meal”), from Proto-West Germanic *māl, from Proto-Germanic *mēlą, from Proto-Indo-European *meh₁- (“to measure”). Cognate with West Frisian miel, Dutch maal (“meal, time, occurrence”), German Mal (“time”), Mahl (“meal”), Norwegian Bokmål mål (“meal”), Swedish mål (“meal”); and (from Proto-Indo-European) with Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron, “measure”), Latin mensus, Russian ме́ра (méra, “measure”), Lithuanian mẽtas. Related to Old English mǣþ (“measure, degree, proportion”).

From Middle English mele, from Old English melu (“meal, flour”), from Proto-West Germanic *melu, from Proto-Germanic *melwą (“meal, flour”), from Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to grind, mill”). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian moal, Dutch meel, German Mehl, Albanian miell, Proto-Slavic *melvo (“grain to be ground”) (Bulgarian мливо (mlivo)), Dutch malen (“to grind”), German mahlen (“to grind”), Old Irish melim (“I grind”), Latin molō (“to grind”), Tocharian A/B malywët (“you press”)/melye (“they tread on”), Lithuanian málti, Old Church Slavonic млѣти (mlěti), Ancient Greek μύλη (múlē, “mill”). More at mill.

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

Words formed from meal

Phrases with meal

19 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with meal

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about meal

What does meal mean?
Meal means food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity.
What is meal in Hindi?
Meal in Hindi is भोजन (bhojan), जेमन (jeman). See Meal meaning in Hindi.
How do you use meal in a sentence?
Ere we will eate our Meale in feare, and ſleepe / In the affliction of theſe terrible Dreames, / That ſhake vs Nightly: […]
What part of speech is meal?
Meal can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce meal?
Meal is pronounced /ˈmiːl/.
What is the plural of meal?
The plural of meal is meals.

Words near meal in the dictionary

  1. Meakin
  2. meaking iron
  3. meaking irons
  4. Meakins
  5. meaks
  6. meal
  7. meal deal
  8. meal deals
  9. meal maker
  10. meal marker
  11. meal markers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: meal (page history and authors); کھادیہ (Urdu) (page history and authors); భోజనము (Telugu) (page history and authors); meal (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); ಆರೋಗಣೆ (Kannada) (page history and authors); ਰੋਟੀ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); જમણ (Gujarati) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-a meal.ogg, en-us-meal.ogg.

Cite this entry: “meal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/meal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.