PIECEMEAL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Piecemeal

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/pˈismˌil/ Listen

adjective

Piecemeal adj. Made up of parts or pieces; single; separate. "These piecemeal guilts."

adverb

Piecemeal adv.

In pieces; in parts or fragments. "On which it piecemeal brake." "The beasts will tear thee piecemeal."

Piece by piece; by little and little in succession. "Piecemeal they win, this acre first, than that."

noun

Piecemeal n. A fragment; a scrap.

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Etymology of 'Piecemeal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Piecemeal" Quotes from Famous Books

... not all; but piecemeal thou must break, To separate contemplation, the great whole: And as the ocean many bays will make, That ask the eye—so here condense the soul To more immediate ...

— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... which disappeared as every tide brought in new robbers from the sea. Yes, but not all. Much of the preciousness was hidden and the place of its hiding forgotten. Bit by bit the churls found the treasure-trove, but they did not tell their lords. They melted down jewels and sold them piecemeal to Jews for Jews' prices, and what they did not recognise as precious they wantonly destroyed. I have seen the marble heads of heathen gods broken with the hammer to make mortar of, and great cups of onyx and alabaster used ...

— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... history, and lastly science. One concession is made to girls which is not made to boys. They are allowed to pass in two subjects one year, and two others the next, and thus obtain their certificates piecemeal. Boys have to pass in all four subjects the same year. The High School sent in seventeen candidates for the examination in two or three of the subjects—History, Elementary Mathematics, French, German, and Latin,—and fifteen of these passed in two subjects ...

— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson

... his tribes-men and kinsfolk in Houndsditch and the Minories there was great joy at first, and afterward bitter, endless litigation. They screamed and battled over the heritage like vultures over a mighty carrion, tearing it at length piecemeal. He did not keep a pet dog, and so no living creature regretted him, unless it were the thin, delicate girl, with white cheeks and hollow eyes, who came once, and knelt to pray by his grave for hours, ...

— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... some signal wrong. From the times of Magna Charta down to the times of the Revolution, we find every triumph of liberty heralded in by some gross outrage upon it. The history of the British Constitution is a history of great natural rights established piecemeal under the immediate promptings of an indignation elicited by unbearable wrongs. It was not until the barrier that protected the privileges of the citizen from the will of the despot gave way at some weak point, ...

— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

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