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gruel

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English

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Etymology 1

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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

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Noun

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gruel (countable and uncountable, plural gruels)

  1. A thin, watery porridge, formerly eaten primarily by the poor and the ill.
    Coordinate terms: congee, oatmeal, porridge, skilly
    • 1816, Jane Austen, Emma:
      […]her own cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth gruel, thin, but not too thin.
    • 1899, E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers:
      […]Father had one of his awful colds, so Dora persuaded him not to go to London, but to stay cosy and warm in the study, and she made him some gruel. She makes it better than Eliza does; Eliza's gruel is all little lumps, and when you suck them it is dry oatmeal inside.
    • 2011, Jasper Fforde, Song of the Quarkbeast:
      “It’s not that bad,” said Tiger defensively. “The foundlings rarely have to share blankets these days, and the gruel no longer has a consistency thinner than water.
  2. Punishment.
  3. Something that lacks substance.
    thin gruel
  4. (slang, US, obsolete) Sentimental poetry.
  5. (slang, British) Semen.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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From the noun above.

Verb

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gruel (third-person singular simple present gruels, present participle (US) grueling or (UK) gruelling, simple past and past participle (US) grueled or (UK) gruelled)

  1. (transitive) To exhaust, use up, disable.
  2. (transitive) To punish. (Can we add an example for this sense? )
  3. (slang, British) Ejaculate.
Derived terms
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References

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  1. ^ “gruel”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

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