Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adverb By a small amount at a time; in stages.
- adverb In pieces; apart.
- adjective Accomplished or made in stages.
from The Century Dictionary.
- By pieces; bit by bit; little by little; gradually: often pleonastically by piecemeal.
- In pieces; in or into bits or fragments.
- Fragmentary; disconnected.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A fragment; a scrap.
- adjective Made up of parts or pieces; single; separate.
- adverb In pieces; in parts or fragments.
- adverb Piece by piece; by little and little in succession.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Made or done in
pieces or one stage at a time. - adverb
Piece by piece; in small amounts,stages , ordegrees . - adverb Into pieces or
parts . - verb transitive To
divide ordistribute piecemeal;dismember . - noun A
fragment ; ascrap .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adverb a little bit at a time
- adjective one thing at a time
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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GH: In your new book Makeshift Metropolis, you state that architects should resist the urge to plan grand utopias and should instead embrace smaller interventions that fit more naturally into what you call piecemeal urbanism.
Guy Horton: Witold Rybczynski's Compelling Makeshift World Guy Horton 2010
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GH: In your new book Makeshift Metropolis, you state that architects should resist the urge to plan grand utopias and should instead embrace smaller interventions that fit more naturally into what you call piecemeal urbanism.
Guy Horton: Witold Rybczynski's Compelling Makeshift World Guy Horton 2010
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GH: In your new book Makeshift Metropolis, you state that architects should resist the urge to plan grand utopias and should instead embrace smaller interventions that fit more naturally into what you call piecemeal urbanism.
Guy Horton: Witold Rybczynski's Compelling Makeshift World Guy Horton 2010
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GH: In your new book Makeshift Metropolis, you state that architects should resist the urge to plan grand utopias and should instead embrace smaller interventions that fit more naturally into what you call piecemeal urbanism.
Guy Horton: Witold Rybczynski's Compelling Makeshift World Guy Horton 2010
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"St Ewold's isn't the best house in the world," said the major, "because it is old, and what I call piecemeal; but it is very pretty, and certainly nice."
The Last Chronicle of Barset Anthony Trollope 1848
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Solutions attempted in piecemeal fashion, as we've seen thus far, would amount to constantly putting out recurring fires.
State Bailouts? They've Already Begun Meredith Whitney 2010
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This counter-initiative should also aim to influence electoral politics because Democrats, who are dependent on corporate coffers, have only been able to win piecemeal social justice victories.
Noura Erakat: The Tea Party and Race in America Noura Erakat 2010
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This counter-initiative should also aim to influence electoral politics because Democrats, who are dependent on corporate coffers, have only been able to win piecemeal social justice victories.
Noura Erakat: The Tea Party and Race in America Noura Erakat 2010
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Other signature promises may be addressed in piecemeal fashion in the opening weeks of the Obama administration but then put on a long track toward more comprehensive resolutions.
The Sunday Word: Closing Guantanamo Will Have To Wait - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com 2009
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Other signature promises may be addressed in piecemeal fashion in the opening weeks of the Obama administration but then put on a long track toward more comprehensive resolutions.
The Sunday Word: Closing Guantanamo Will Have To Wait - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com 2009
maesepedro commented on the word piecemeal
really should be the name of this list!
May 24, 2008
zc0000 commented on the word piecemeal
Nonbacktracking subexpression (also known as a "greedy" subexpression). The subexpression is fully matched once, and then does not participate piecemeal in backtracking. (That is, the subexpression matches only strings that would be matched by the subexpression alone.)
June 3, 2010
ruzuzu commented on the word piecemeal
Is there a good single-word antonym for this? Maybe wholesale? (Asking for a friend.)
November 16, 2015
bilby commented on the word piecemeal
wholemeal.
November 16, 2015
bilby commented on the word piecemeal
Or piecesnack I guess :-/
November 16, 2015
ruzuzu commented on the word piecemeal
Great. Now I'm hungry.
November 16, 2015
qms commented on the word piecemeal
Isn't this what you eat after you have smoked the peace pipe?
November 16, 2015
bilby commented on the word piecemeal
Here ruzuzu, have a tasty food pellet on toast.
November 17, 2015
bilby commented on the word piecemeal
By the way, have you met snack?
November 17, 2015
ruzuzu commented on the word piecemeal
Ooh! A tasty food pellet!
November 17, 2015
qms commented on the word piecemeal
Seriously, though: are not "whole" or "entire" adequate antonyms for "piecemeal?"
November 17, 2015
ruzuzu commented on the word piecemeal
Probably. But somehow they don't seem parallel--not that words have to be all matchy-matchy to be antonyms.
November 17, 2015
ruzuzu commented on the word piecemeal
Hmm--synthesis has promise.
November 17, 2015
qms commented on the word piecemeal
complete?
November 17, 2015
ruzuzu commented on the word piecemeal
Maybe. I think my friend settled on outright, which seemed appropriate to whatever the context was.
November 17, 2015
bilby commented on the word piecemeal
Brackets around matchy-matchy please.
November 17, 2015
ruzuzu commented on the word piecemeal
Your wish, my command, &c.
November 17, 2015
fbharjo commented on the word piecemeal
bitpiecemeal
November 19, 2015
fbharjo commented on the word piecemeal
whole-grain gained and piecemealed
November 19, 2015