[meel] 
| 1. | the food served and eaten esp. at one of the customary, regular occasions for taking food during the day, as breakfast, lunch, or supper. |
| 2. | one of these regular occasions or times for eating food. |
[meel] | 1. | a coarse, unsifted powder ground from the edible seeds of any grain: wheat meal; cornmeal. |
| 2. | any ground or powdery substance, as of nuts or seeds, resembling this. |
| meal 1 (mēl) n.
[Middle English mele, from Old English melu; see melə- in Indo-European roots.] |
| meal 2 (mēl) n.
[Middle English mele, from Old English mǣl; see mē-2 in Indo-European roots.] |
meal 2
n.
The food served and eaten in one sitting.
A customary time or occasion of eating food.
Meals
are at the present day "eaten from a round table little higher than a stool, guests sitting cross-legged on mats or small carpets in a circle, and dipping their fingers into one large dish heaped with a mixture of boiled rice and other grain and meat. But in the time of our Lord, and perhaps even from the days of Amos (6:4, 7), the foreign custom had been largely introduced of having broad couches, forming three sides of a small square, the guests reclining at ease on their elbows during meals, with their faces to the space within, up and down which servants passed offering various dishes, or in the absence of servants, helping themselves from dishes laid on a table set between the couches." Geikie's Life of Christ. (Comp. Luke 7:36-50.) (See ABRAHAM'S BOSOM ØT0000055; BANQUET ØT0000434; FEAST.)
