{"id":24006,"date":"2025-04-25T19:14:22","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T19:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=24006"},"modified":"2025-04-25T19:14:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T19:14:22","slug":"piecemeal-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=24006","title":{"rendered":"Piecemeal Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The word <strong>piecemeal<\/strong> means made or done in pieces or one stage at a time, but why <strong>meal<\/strong>? Does it have something to do with food?<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/like_the_grand_canyon\/42986459011\/in\/photolist-28uyQD2-oN2whe-5uhxSB-DNbSx2-9u5p41-5k99p6-dSpFaJ-ErFsGd-23SJVZc-57J5um-hvGz6T-9dh8iD-nvGAAH-nxjFu6-dZ4JHt-KnPdTL-LzNuBH-a6Vy3Z-ogvA15-259BLEw-7Ephi8-7w97no-c6kzqU-BwnsDH-aeifb4-zdt2Fw-nHvQQo-eguTRK-2ED5Kb-dvN6jZ-oMkZLm-bSPbz8-8cvNKw-26zqr5m-jt38ta-2aNaED8-oLfRoL-jt43dj-FduhDp-PgHXBj-6STEce-b6btM2-d9o4RA-CiAjn5-DPaY6f-egnAhn-nudem1-hT3Z71-pH9GkN-iurEFC\" title=\"Party food buffet\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/895\/42986459011_e8d4f37c6d_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" alt=\"Party food buffet\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Piecemeal<\/strong> is [\u02c8pi\u02d0s.mi\u02d0l] comes from Middle English <em>p\u0113ce(s)-m\u0113le<\/em> (in pieces, piece by piece, bit by bit), from <em>p\u0113ce(s)<\/em> (a fragment, bit, piece) and <em>-m\u0113l(e)<\/em> (a derivational suffix in adverbs) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/piecemeal#English\">source<\/a>]. <\/p>\n<p><em>P\u0113ce(s)<\/em> comes from Old French <em>piece<\/em> (piece, bit, part), from Late Latin <em>pettia<\/em> (piece, portion), from Gaulish <em>*petty\u0101<\/em>, from Proto-Celtic <em>*k\u02b7ezdis<\/em> (piece, portion), possibly from a non-Indo-European substrate [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/pece#Middle_English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Words from the same Proto-Celtic roots include <strong>piece<\/strong> in English, <strong>pi\u00e8ce<\/strong> (room, patch, piece, play, document) in French, <strong>peza<\/strong> (piece, fragment, part) in Galician, <strong>pieze<\/strong> (piece, part) in Spanish,  <strong>peth<\/strong> (thing, object, material) in Welsh, <strong>pezh<\/strong> (piece, bit, room, part, what) in Breton, <strong>cuid<\/strong> (part, share, portion, some) in Irish, and <strong>cooid<\/strong> (certain, some, stuff, goods, part) in Manx &#8211; for more related words in Celtic languages see the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/celtiadur\/2021\/12\/02\/parts-and-portions\/\">Parts and Portions<\/a> post on the Celtiadur [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic\/k%CA%B7ezdis\">source<\/a>]. <\/p>\n<p><em>-m\u0113le<\/em> comes from Old English <em>m\u01e3lum<\/em> (at a time), from <em>m\u01e3l<\/em> (measure, mark, sign, time, occasion, season, the time for eating, meal[time]), from Proto-West Germanic <em>*m\u0101l<\/em> (time, occasion, mealtime), from Proto-Germanic *m\u0113l\u0105 (time, occasion, period, meal, spot, mark, measure), from Proto-Indo-European <em>*meh\u2081-<\/em> (\u201cto measure\u201d) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/m%C3%A6l#Old_English\">source<\/a>]. <\/p>\n<p>The English word <strong>meal<\/strong> can refer to food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity (as opposed to a snack), and food served or eaten as a repast, and used to mean a time or an occasion. It retains this last meaning in the word <strong>piecemeal<\/strong>. Related words include <strong>footmeal<\/strong> (one foot at a time) and <strong>heapmeal<\/strong> (in large numbers, heap by heap) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/meal#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Related words in other languages include <strong>maal<\/strong> (meal, time, occurrence) in Dutch, <strong>Mal<\/strong> (time, occasion) and <strong>Mahl<\/strong> (meal) in German, <strong>m\u00e5l<\/strong> (target, finish, goal, meal) in Swedish, and <strong>b\u00e9ile<\/strong> (meal) in Irish.<\/p>\n<p>In Old English, the word <em>sty\u010b\u010bem\u01e3lum<\/em> was used to mean piecemeal, piece by piece, in pieces, gradually, etc. It became <strong>stichmeal<\/strong> in early modern English. Related words include <em>bitm\u01e3lum<\/em> (bit by bit), <em>dropm\u01e3lum<\/em> (drop by drop), which became <strong>dropmeal<\/strong>, and <em>st\u00e6pm\u01e3lum<\/em> (step by step), which became <strong>stepmeal<\/strong> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/styccem%C3%A6lum#Old_English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.japanesepod101.com\/member\/go.php?r=759259&amp;i=b0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/banners\/banner_japanesepod.jpg\" alt=\"The Fastest Way to Learn Japanese Guaranteed with JapanesePod101.com\" width=\"630\" height=\"83\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The word piecemeal means made or done in pieces or one stage at a time, but why meal? Does it have something to do with food? Piecemeal is [\u02c8pi\u02d0s.mi\u02d0l] comes from Middle English p\u0113ce(s)-m\u0113le (in pieces, piece by piece, bit by bit), from p\u0113ce(s) (a fragment, bit, piece) and -m\u0113l(e) (a derivational suffix in adverbs) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,102,104,107,111,113,114,116,127,10,302,23,26,33,34,43,44,45,202,64,67,77,78],"tags":[164,158,138,395,281,396,394,397,163],"class_list":["post-24006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breton","category-dutch","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-galician","category-gaulish","category-german","category-irish","category-language","category-late-latin","category-manx","category-middle-english","category-old-english-aenglisc","category-old-french","category-proto-celtic","category-proto-germanic","category-proto-indo-european","category-proto-west-germanic","category-spanish","category-swedish","category-welsh","category-words-and-phrases","tag-english","tag-etymology","tag-language","tag-meal","tag-omniglot","tag-piece","tag-piecemeal","tag-time","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24006"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24009,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24006\/revisions\/24009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}