gruel

Meaning

1. A thin, watery porridge, formerly eaten primarily by the poor and the ill.
2. Punishment
3. Something that lacks substance
4. (obsolete,slang) Sentimental poetry
5. (slang) Semen

porridge

purée de pommes de terre mashed potatoes

soft-boiled rice

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈɡɹuːəl/

From Middle English gruel, gruwel, greuel, growel (“meal or flour made from beans, lentils, etc.”), from Old French gruel (“coarse meal; > French gruau”), from Medieval Latin grutellum, diminutive of Medieval Latin grutum (“flour; meal”), from a Germanic source, likely Old English grūt (“meal; grout”) or perhaps Frankish *grūt; both from Proto-Germanic *grūtiz (“ground material; grit”). Compare Dutch gruit, Middle Low German grūt, Middle High German grūz, German Grütze (“grout”). Related also to English groats, grit.