parcel
Contents
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
Borrowed from Old French parcelle (“a small piece or part, a parcel, a particle”), from Vulgar Latin *particella, diminutive of Latin particula (“particle”), diminutive of pars (“part, piece”). Doublet of particle.
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
parcel (plural parcels)
- A package wrapped for shipment.
- I saw a brown paper parcel on my doorstep.
- 1892, Walter Besant, chapter II, in The Ivory Gate: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619:
- 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.
- 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Lisson Grove Mystery[1]:
- “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. […] ”
- An individual consignment of cargo for shipment, regardless of size and form.
- A division of land bought and sold as a unit.
- I own a small parcel of land between the refinery and the fish cannery.
- (obsolete) A group of birds.
- An indiscriminate or indefinite number, measure, or quantity; a collection; a group.
- c. 1602, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act II, Scene 3,[2]
- […] this youthful parcel
- Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,
- 1847, Herman Melville, Omoo, Part 2, Chapter 79,[3]
- […] 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 […]
- c. 1602, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act II, Scene 3,[2]
- A small amount of food that has been wrapped up, for example a pastry.
- A portion of anything taken separately; a fragment of a whole; a part.
- A certain piece of land is part and parcel of another piece.
- 1731, John Arbuthnot, An essay concerning the nature of aliments, London: J. Tonson, Chapter 4, p. 85,[4]
- 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,[5]
- The parcels of the nation adopted different forms of self-government, sought divers foreign alliances.
SynonymsEdit
Derived termsEdit
Derived terms
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
package wrapped for shipment
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division of land bought and sold as a unit
See alsoEdit
VerbEdit
parcel (third-person singular simple present parcels, present participle parceling or parcelling, simple past and past participle parceled or parcelled)
- To wrap something up into the form of a package.
- To wrap a strip around the end of a rope.
- To divide and distribute by parts or portions; often with out or into.
- 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act II, Scene 2,[6]
- Their woes are parcell’d, mine are general.
- 1667, John Dryden, The Indian Emperour, London: H. Herringman, Act I, Scene 2, p. 12,[7]
- Those ghostly Kings would parcel out my pow’r,
- And all the fatness of my Land devour;
- 1864, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Aylmer’s Field” in Enoch Arden, etc., London: Edward Moxon, pp. 94-95,[8]
- Then the great Hall was wholly broken down,
- And the broad woodland parcell’d into farms;
- 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act II, Scene 2,[6]
- To add a parcel or item to; to itemize.
- c. 1606, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act V, Scene 2,[9]
- […] that mine own servant should
- Parcel the sum of my disgraces by
- Addition of his envy!
- c. 1606, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act V, Scene 2,[9]
TranslationsEdit
to wrap into a package
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to wrap a strip around the end of a rope
AdverbEdit
parcel (not comparable)
- (obsolete) Part or half; in part; partially.
- c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act II, Scene 1,[10]
- Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet […]
- 1826, Walter Scott, Woodstock, or The Cavalier, Chapter 4,[11]
- […] as the worthy dame was parcel blind and more than parcel deaf, knowledge was excluded by two principal entrances […]
- 1864, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Aylmer’s Field” in Enoch Arden, etc., London: Edward Moxon, p. 59,[12]
- here was one [a hut] that, summer-blanch’d,
- Was parcel-bearded with the traveller’s-joy
- In Autumn, parcel ivy-clad;
- c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act II, Scene 1,[10]
Further readingEdit
- parcel in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- parcel in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.