meal

CEFRA1

/ˈmiːl/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    Food eaten at one time, such as breakfast or dinner.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A break taken by a police officer in order to eat.

Examples

  • This ticket entitles you to a free meal.

  • We enjoyed a delicious home-cooked meal with our close friends yesterday.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
2

Also pronounced

  • [ˈmɪi̯l]

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. Food served or eaten as a repast.

  2. Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity.

  3. A time or an occasion.

More examples

In context

  • We're going out for a meal on Friday.

  • Breakfast is the morning meal, lunch is the noon meal, and dinner, or supper, is the evening meal.

  • c1450, Secreta Secretorumː He that will cast meal upon meal is not able to have (a) long life.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

We sat down to enjoy a hot blank after working all day in the fields.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

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”).