Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Resembling meal in texture or consistency; granular.
  • adjective Made of or containing meal.
  • adjective Sprinkled or covered with meal or a similar granular substance.
  • adjective Flecked with spots; mottled.
  • adjective Lacking healthy coloring; pale.
  • adjective Mealy-mouthed.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of the nature of meal; resembling or having the qualities of meal; pulverulent: as, a mealy powder: a mealy potato; a mealy apple.
  • Covered or overspread with meal or with some powdery substance resembling meal.
  • Specifically— In ornithology, having the plumage whitened as if dusted over with flour; hoary; canescent.
  • In entomology, mealy-winged.
  • In botany, same as farinosc.
  • Pale-colored; light or white in hue, like meal: as, a mealy complexion.
  • Mealy-mouthed.
  • Starchy; farinaceous. See starchy, 2.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having the qualities of meal; resembling meal; soft, dry, and friable; easily reduced to a condition resembling meal.
  • adjective Overspread with something that resembles meal.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Describing a substance, especially a dry foodstuff such as grain, that resembles meal.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective composed of or covered with particles resembling meal in texture or consistency
  • adjective containing meal or made of meal

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

See meal

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Examples

  • Some had the creamy ring on their muzzles that was known as mealy muzzle because it looked as if they had put their noses in a bucket of food and still had the mush on their mouths.

    Secret of the Night Ponies JOAN HIATT HARLOW 2009

  • Some had the creamy ring on their muzzles that was known as mealy muzzle because it looked as if they had put their noses in a bucket of food and still had the mush on their mouths.

    Secret of the Night Ponies JOAN HIATT HARLOW 2009

  • Some had the creamy ring on their muzzles that was known as mealy muzzle because it looked as if they had put their noses in a bucket of food and still had the mush on their mouths.

    Secret of the Night Ponies JOAN HIATT HARLOW 2009

  • You seem to be sure that, when it comes to allusions, the film is to borrow Jody's phrase mealy-mouthed, and not just reasonably ambiguous.

    On Violence and Restraint in The Dark Knight Ed Howard 2008

  • You seem to be sure that, when it comes to allusions, the film is to borrow Jody's phrase mealy-mouthed, and not just reasonably ambiguous.

    On Violence and Restraint in The Dark Knight Ed Howard 2008

  • "Dastardly attempt to win the cause of the working girls by dirty scab leaders and butter-fingered capitalist class," it began, and after this followed a wild jumble of words, words without meaning, sentences without point in which Sam was called a mealy-mouthed mail-order musser and The

    Windy McPherson's Son Sherwood Anderson 1908

  • The face and legs are black, or sometimes mottled, the horns spiral, and on the top of the forehead it has a small round tuft of lighter-coloured wool than on the face; has the muzzle and lips of the same light hue, and what shepherds call a mealy mouth; the eye is full of vivacity and fire, and well open; the body long, round, and firm, and the limbs robust.

    The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861

  • The face and legs are black, or sometimes mottled, the horns spiral, and on the top of the forehead it has a small round tuft of lighter-coloured wool than on the face; has the muzzle and lips of the same light hue, and what shepherds call a mealy mouth; the eye is full of vivacity and fire, and well open; the body long, round, and firm, and the limbs robust.

    The Book of Household Management Isabella Mary 1861

  • ” Jerry once satirized this kind of mealy mouthed reporting by drawing chalk circles on the floor of a car company men's room, standing on them and whispering some observation about where the industry was headed.

    Forbes' Editor Remembers Jerry Flint 2010

  • It would not necessarily foster the kind of mealy-mouth bipartisanship that some of you are concerned about.

    Mayor Bloomberg: "There is a partisanship that has paralyzed our country." Ann Althouse 2008

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