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To eat; to take one's meals. [Obs.] Let him . . . diet in such places, where there is good company of the nation, where he traveleth. Bacon.

food or medicine. Chaucer. That digestive [a cigar] had become to me as necessary as the meal itself. Blackw. Mag.

To eat the principal regular meal of the day; to take dinner. Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep. Shak. To dine with Duke Humphrey, to go without dinner; -- a phrase common in Elizabethan literature, said to be from the practice of the poor gentry, who beguiled the dinner hour by a promenade near the tomb of…

The principal meal of the day, eaten by most people about midday, but by many (especially in cities) at a later hour.

The act of reclining at table according to the manner of the ancients at their meals. Sir T. Browne.

Paste of bread; a soft mass of moistened flour or meal, kneaded or unkneaded, but not yet baked; as, to knead dough.

Same as 2d Dredger. (b) (Gun.) A copper box with a perforated lid; -- used for sprinkling meal powder over shell fuses. Farrow.

To change on the surface, or throughout, to a whitish, mealy, or crystalline powder, from a gradual decomposition, esp. from the loss of water, on simple exposure to the air; as, Glauber's salts, and many others, effloresce.

t; especially, provision for the table; a hospitable repast; a feast; a formal or elegant meal. (b) That which engages the attention agreeably, amuses or diverts, whether in private, as by conversation, etc., or in public, by performances of some kind; amusement. Theatrical entertainments conducted with greater eleganc…

an plain, having rooms to let, and leaving it optional with guests whether they will take meals in the house; -- said of hotels. [U. S.]

A fine flour or meal made from cereal grains or from the starch or fecula of vegetables, extracted by various processes, and used in cookery.

Consisting or made of meal or flour; as, a farinaceous diet.

Civered with a sort of white, mealy powder, as the leaves of some poplars, and the body of certain insects; mealy.

to put an end to a period of abstinence by taking food; especially, to take one's morning meal; to breakfast. Shak.

A festive or joyous meal; a grand, ceremonious, or sumptuous entertainment, of which many guests partake; a banquet characterized by tempting variety and abundance of food. Enough is as good as a feast. Old Proverb. Belshazzar the King made a great feast to a thousand of his lords. Dan. v. 1.

An allowance of provender given to a horse, cow, etc.; a meal; as, a feed of corn or oats.

r Peter." Shak. Cochineal fig. See Conchineal fig. -- Fig dust, a preparation of fine oatmeal for feeding caged birds. -- Fig faun, one of a class of rural deities or monsters supposed to live on figs. "Therefore shall dragons dwell there with the fig fauns." Jer. i. 39. (Douay version). -- Fig gnat (Zoöl.), a small…

A dry measure formerly used in Scotland; the fourth part of a boll of grain or meal. The Linlithgow wheat firlot was to the imperial bushel as 998 to 1000; the barley firlot as 1456 to 1000. Brande & C.

The finely ground meal of wheat, or of any other grain; especially, the finer part of meal separated by bolting; hence, the fine and soft powder of any substance; as, flour of emery; flour of mustard. Flour bolt, in milling, a gauze-covered, revolving, cylindrical frame or reel, for sifting the flour from the refuse co…

Of or resembling flour; mealy; covered with flour. Dickens.