meal [OE] Meal meaning ‘the edible part of any grain or pulse’ goes back to an ancient root shared with Latin molere ‘to grind’, which shares a root with *mill. The meal at which food is eaten has a root meaning ‘to measure’. In Old English meal also meant ‘a measure’, a use which survives in piecemeal [ME] ‘a bit at a time’. The expression to make a meal of dates from the early 17th century in the sense ‘to take advantage of’, but the notion ‘to make something unduly laborious’ goes back only to the 1960s. The idea behind mealy-mouthed, ‘afraid to speak frankly or straightforwardly’, is of a person having their mouth full of meal and so being afraid to open it fully. It is first recorded in the 1570s, and probably comes from an old German proverb.