gruel
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Etymology 1
From Middle English gruel, gruwel, greuel, growel (“meal or flour made from beans, lentils, etc.”), from Old French gruel (“coarse meal; > French gruau”), from Medieval Latin grutellum, diminutive of Medieval Latin grutum (“flour; meal”), from a Germanic source, likely Old English grūt (“meal; grout”) or perhaps Frankish *grūt; both from Proto-Germanic *grūtiz (“ground material; grit”). Compare Dutch gruit, Middle Low German grūt, Middle High German grūz, German Grütze (“grout”).[1] Related also to English groats, grit.
Pronunciation
Noun
gruel (countable and uncountable, plural gruels)
- A thin, watery porridge, formerly eaten primarily by the poor and the ill.
- Punishment
- Something that lacks substance
- thin gruel
- (slang, US, obsolete) Sentimental poetry
- (slang, British) Semen
Derived terms
- give someone his gruel
- get one's gruel (receive one's punishment; obsolete)
- water gruel
Related terms
Translations
thin watery porridge
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Etymology 2
From the noun above.
Verb
gruel (third-person singular simple present gruels, present participle gruelling or grueling, simple past and past participle gruelled or grueled)
- (transitive) To exhaust, use up, disable
- (transitive) to punish (Can we add an example for this sense?)
- (slang, British) ejaculate
Derived terms
References
- “gruel”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
Anagrams
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