gruel

English

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
  • 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

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)

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

Derived terms

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

Anagrams
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