piecemeal means made or done in pieces or one stage at a time.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, piecemeal ranks #718 of 42,752 for Qualifying.
piecemeal is pronounced /ˈpiːs.miːl/.
Etymology
From Middle English pecemele, from pece (“piece”) + mele (from Old English mǣlum (“at a time”), dative plural form of mǣl (“time, measure”), taking the place of Old English styċċemǣlum (“in pieces, bit by bit, piecemeal; to pieces, to bits; here and there, in different places; little by little, by degrees, gradually”); equivalent to piece + -meal.
adj
- Made or done in pieces or one stage at a time.e.g.“Near-synonyms: piecewise, stepwise; see also Thesaurus:gradual”
adv
- Piece by piece; in small amounts, stages, or degrees.e.g.“It’s as bad as selling a man a horse with half a dozen latent vices and watching him discover them piecemeal in the course of the hunting season.” — 1914, Saki, The Forbidden Buzzards:
- Into pieces or parts.
noun
- A fragment; a scrap.e.g.“Thus the world Is all to piecemeals cut” — a. 1695, Henry Vaughan, Ode:
verb
- To divide or distribute piecemeal; dismember.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).