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Theme week: adverbs that are not -ly forms. Which we'll take on one bit at a time:
piecemeal (PEES-meel) - adv., piece by piece, one piece at a time.
One of several -meal adverbs, which suffix means one $stem at a time -- others include flockmeal, heapmeal, inchmeal, pagemeal, stepmeal, and wordmeal. (Meal itself in the sense of eating at a set time is from this same sense.) This particular form first appeared in the 13th century as pece mele, replacing the Old English form styccemǣlum (from stycce, a piece).
---L.
piecemeal (PEES-meel) - adv., piece by piece, one piece at a time.
One of several -meal adverbs, which suffix means one $stem at a time -- others include flockmeal, heapmeal, inchmeal, pagemeal, stepmeal, and wordmeal. (Meal itself in the sense of eating at a set time is from this same sense.) This particular form first appeared in the 13th century as pece mele, replacing the Old English form styccemǣlum (from stycce, a piece).
---L.
