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h the purpose of satisfying hunger; a repast; the acas, the traveler has not eaten a good meal for a week; there was silence during the meal. What strange fish Hath made his meal on thee Shak.

See Mealy-mouthed.

Maize or Indian corn; -- the common name in South Africa.

The quality or state of being mealy.

The usual time of eating a meal.

Having the qualities of meal; resembling meal; soft, dry, and friable; easily reduced to a condition resembling meal; as, a mealy potato.

affectedly or timidly delicate of speech; unwilling to tell the truth in plain language. "Mealy-mouthed philanthropies." Tennyson. She was a fool to be mealy-mouthed where nature speaks so plain. L'Estrange. -- Meal"y-mouth`ness, n.

(Min.) An earthy substance, resembling fine flour. It is composed of the shells of infusoria, and in Lapland and Sweden is sometimes eaten, mixed with flour or ground birch bark, in times of scarcity. This name is also given to a white powdery variety of calcite.

A meal made from hulled cotton seeds after the oil has been expressed.

By drops or small portions. [Obs.] Distilling dropmeal, a little at once. Holland.

A piece an inch long. By inchmeal, by small degrees; by inches. Shak.

Piecemeal. [Obs.] "To tear her limbmeal." Shak.

Meal made of oats. Gay.

In pieces; in parts or fragments. "On which it piecemeal brake." Chapman. The beasts will tear thee piecemeal. Tennyson.

Divided into pieces.

Same as Ramal. Gray.

By troops; in crowds. [Obs.] So, troopmeal, Troy pursued a while, laying on with swords and darts. Chapman.

The inferior, or after, part of the day; the afternoon. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.] In undermeals and in mornings. Chaucer.

The act or posture of reclining on a couch, as practiced by the ancients at meals.

Leaning or reclining, as the ancients did at their meals. The Roman.. accumbent posture in eating. Arbuthnot.