GRUEL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does gruel mean? 

• GRUEL (noun)
  The noun GRUEL has 1 sense:

1. a thin porridge (usually oatmeal or cornmeal)

  Familiarity information: GRUEL used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GRUEL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A thin porridge (usually oatmeal or cornmeal)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("gruel" is a kind of...):

porridge (soft food made by boiling oatmeal or other meal or legumes in water or milk until thick)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gruel"):

congee; jook (a Chinese rice gruel eaten for breakfast)

skilly (a thin porridge or soup (usually oatmeal and water flavored with meat))

loblolly (thick gruel)

 Context examples 

"Eat that now," she said: "you must be hungry. Hannah says you have had nothing but some gruel since breakfast."

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And for a little while she hoped he would not talk of it, and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to the relish of his own smooth gruel.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Mrs. March gave the mother tea and gruel, and comforted her with promises of help, while she dressed the little baby as tenderly as if it had been her own.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel.”

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

You must go to bed early, my dear—and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The gruel came and supplied a great deal to be said—much praise and many comments—undoubting decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty severe Philippics upon the many houses where it was never met with tolerably;—but, unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter had to instance, the most recent, and therefore most prominent, was in her own cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth gruel, thin, but not too thin.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

After a little more discourse in praise of gruel, with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by every body, he proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection, It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South End instead of coming here.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could, with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might constrain himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to say: Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)