FromMiddle Englishpecemele, frompece(“piece”) +mele (fromOld Englishmǣlum(“at a time”), dative plural form ofmǣl(“time, measure”), taking the place ofOld Englishstyċċemǣlum(“in pieces, bit by bit, piecemeal; to pieces, to bits; here and there, in different places; little by little, by degrees, gradually”); equivalent topiece +-meal.
But the copious and intertwined associative links warrant our accepting the former alternative: cyclamen—favourite flower—favourite food— artichokes; pulling to pieces like an artichoke, leaf by leaf (a phrase constantly ringing in our ears in relation to thepiecemeal dismemberment of the Chinese Empire)—herbarium—bookworms, whose favourite food is books.
2012, James Lambert, “BeyondHobson-Jobson: A new lexicography for Indian English”, inWorld Englishes[1], page312:
The dictionaries themselves cover this additional lexis in what can best be described as apiecemeal fashion, with an obvious but unwarranted bias towards colonial era lexis.
It’s as bad as selling a man a horse with half a dozen latent vices and watching him discover thempiecemeal in the course of the hunting season.
1960 February, R. C. Riley, “The London-Birmingham services - Past, Present and Future”, inTrains Illustrated, page96:
The Western Region route, by contrast, was built uppiecemeal and was not shaped in its present form until 1910.
2024 May 1, Howard Johnston, “Network News: TfN plan reiterates plea to preserve abandoned HS2 land”, inRAIL, number1008, page12:
The Government is under fresh pressure not to sell offpiecemeal the route of the abandoned northern extension to Manchester until extra rail capacity has been clearly identified.
Stoop villaine, ſtoop, ſtoope for ſo he bids, That may commaund theepeecemeale to be torne, Or ſcattered like the lofty Cedar trees. Strooke with the voice of thundringIupiter.
A few years ago also there was the case of Kate Webster, who at Richmond murdered her mistress, and, fiend-like, cut the body uppiecemeal, and tried to dispose of it in various ways by small portions.
The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more: the names only are left, and those (for many of them are wrong spelt) are falling themselves bypiecemeals to decay.
