gruel

English

Etymology

From Middle English gruel, gruwel, greuel, growel, 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

  • IPA(key): /ɡɹuː(ə)l/
  • Rhymes: -ʊəl

Noun

gruel (countable and uncountable, plural gruels)

  1. A thin, watery porridge, formerly eaten primarily by the poor and the ill

Coordinate terms

Translations

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To exhaust; use up; disable.

Derived terms

References

  1. ↑ gruel in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

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