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Added 9 October 2026

meal

/ˈmiːl/ noun

In Latin: cibus Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about meal at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

The food served and eaten at one time.
Any of the occasions for eating food that occur by custom or habit at more or less fixed times.
Coarsely ground foodstuff; especially seeds of various cereal grasses or pulse.

Origin

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 Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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