parcel
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Middle English parcel, from Old French parcelle (“a small piece or part, a parcel, a particle”), from Late Latin particella, diminutive of Latin particula (“particle”), diminutive of partem (“part, piece”). Doublet of particle.
Inflected forms:
form: parcels
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: parcels
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: parceling
pos: verb
tags: US
participle
present
form: parcelling
pos: verb
tags: UK
participle
present
form: parceled
pos: verb
tags: US
participle
past
form: parceled
pos: verb
tags: US
past
form: parcelled
pos: verb
tags: UK
participle
past
form: parcelled
pos: verb
tags: UK
past
Senses:
gloss: A package wrapped, as for shipment or transport.
pos: noun
examples: I saw a brown paper parcel on my doorstep.
At twilight in the summer[…]the mice come out. They[…]eat the luncheon crumbs. Mr. Checkly, for instance, always brought his dinner in a paper parcel in his coat-tail pocket, and ate it when so disposed, sprinkling crumbs lavishly[…]on the floor.
“H'm !” he said, “so, so—it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what […] will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday […] that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth. […]”
gloss: An individual consignment of cargo for shipment, regardless of size and form.
pos: noun
gloss: An individual item appearing on an invoice or receipt (only in the phrase bill of parcels).
pos: noun
gloss: A division of land bought and sold as a unit.
pos: noun
examples: I own a small parcel of land between the refinery and the fish cannery.
gloss: A group of birds.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
gloss: An indiscriminate or indefinite number, measure, or quantity; a collection; a group.
pos: noun
examples: […] this youthful parcel / Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,
"Come, now," said the hill-man, "let us hear who else is to be at the christening?" "Ah," said the boy, "we are to have a great parcel of strangers and great people."
[…] instead of sitting (as she ought to have done) by her good father and mother, she must needs run up into the gallery, and sit with a parcel of giddy creatures of her own age […]
gloss: A small amount of food that has been wrapped up, for example a pastry.
pos: noun
gloss: A portion of anything taken separately; a fragment of a whole; a part.
pos: noun
examples: A certain piece of land is part and parcel of another piece.
The same Experiments succeed on two Parcels of the White of an Egg […]
1881, John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy, Volume 5, Part I, New York: Henry Holt, Chapter 1, p. 2,
The parcels of the nation adopted different forms of self-government, sought divers foreign alliances.
I don't think we are sitting pretty / So far away from our fair city / But I love you more than any parcel of earth.
gloss: To wrap something up into the form of a package.
pos: verb
gloss: To wrap a strip around the end of a rope.
pos: verb
examples: Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.
gloss: To divide and distribute by parts or portions; often with off, out or into.
pos: verb
examples: Their woes are parcell’d, mine are general.
Thoſe ghoſtly Kings would parcel out my pow’r, / And all the fatneſs of my Land devour;
Hindostan was then parcelled out into twelve grand divisions, called soobahs, to each of which a viceroy was assigned, by the title of Soobahdar, corruptly written Soobah by European writers; for, soobah signifies province: many of these soobahs were in extent equal to large European kingdoms.
Then the great Hall was wholly broken down, / And the broad woodland parcell’d into farms;
gloss: To add a parcel or item to; to itemize.
pos: verb
examples: […] that mine own servant should / Parcel the sum of my disgraces by / Addition of his envy!
Related words: part
particle
particular
particulate
lot
allotment
Derived words: air parcel
bill of parcels
interparcel
multiparcel
parcel bomb
parcelcopter
parcelful
parcel gilt
parcellate
parcellation
parcel locker
parcel out
parcel-poet
parcel post
parcel shelf
parcel tape
parcel together
parcel up
parcelwise
part and parcel
pass the parcel
unparcel
unparcelled
Translations: