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PlainSpell

meal

/ˈmiːl/noun, verb

meal is spelled M-E-A-L: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 30 times per million words in written English, the 3,114th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, meal means “Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of meal is meals.

How many letters and syllables are in meal?

Letters4: M-E-A-L
Syllables1
In writing30 times per million words; the 3,114th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is meal?

Meal appears 30 times per million words in written English, the 3,114th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce meal?

  • /ˈmiːl/
  • [ˈmɪi̯l]

Meal has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-a_meal.ogg, En-us-meal.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-meal.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with meal?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as meal.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: male, lame, mela, amel, lema, leam.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of meal

  • meals plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • mealing participle, present
  • mealed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does meal mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity.

    Breakfast is the morning meal, lunch is the noon meal, and dinner, or supper, is the evening meal.

  2. 2

    Food served or eaten as a repast.

    a1450, The Macro Playsː If thou wilt fare well at meat and meal, come and follow me.

  3. 3

    informalA break taken by a police officer in order to eat.

  4. 4

    obsoleteA time or an occasion.

    Ye wolde wepe at every mele; But for my sone wepe ye never a dele. You would weep at every meal, but for my son you never weep a deal.

  5. 5

    The ground-up edible part of various grains, used as a basis of food or feed; either flour or a coarser blend than flour (usage varies).

  6. 6

    Any of various similarly granular materials prepared from other sources, such as bones or wood.

  7. 7

    Any of various other granular or powdery materials, either ground by humans or occurring in nature, named figuratively after a resemblance to grain meal.

  8. 8

    UKA speck or spot.

  9. 9

    A part; a fragment; a portion.

verb

  1. 1

    To defile or taint.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo yield or be plentiful in meal.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate meal?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of meal: MCI.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Meal in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchrepas (food that is prepared and eaten), mouture (coarse-ground edible part of various grains)
GermanMahlzeit, Essen (food that is prepared and eaten), Mehl, Schrot (coarse-ground edible part of various grains)
Portugueserefeição (food that is prepared and eaten), farinha (coarse-ground edible part of various grains)
Spanishcomida, pitanza, condumio, vianda (food that is prepared and eaten), harina (coarse-ground edible part of various grains)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does meal come from?

From Middle English mel, from Old English mǣl (“measure, time, occasion, set time, time for eating, meal”), from Proto-West Germanic *māl, from Proto-Germanic *mēlą, from Proto-Indo-European *meh₁- (“to measure”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after meal