{
    "term": "meal",
    "partOfSpeech": "noun",
    "ox3000": true,
    "cefr": "a1",
    "definitions": [
        {
            "senseNumber": 1,
            "definition": "an occasion when people eat food, especially breakfast, lunch or dinner",
            "labels": "(especially British English)British EnglishBritish English(especially British English)(British English)(especially North American English)(especially British English)(North American English)",
            "cefr": "a1",
            "ox3000": true,
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "Try not to eat between meals."
                },
                {
                    "text": "Lunch is his main meal of the day."
                },
                {
                    "text": "to **go out for a meal** *(= to go to a restaurant to have a meal)*"
                },
                {
                    "text": "What time would you like your evening meal?"
                },
                {
                    "text": "I'm so busy I have to snatch meals when I can."
                },
                {
                    "text": "The family was always noisy at meal times."
                }
            ],
            "topics": ["Cooking and eating"],
            "collocations": {
                "adjective": ["big", "filling", "heavy"]
            }
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": 2,
            "definition": "the food that is eaten at a meal",
            "cefr": "a1",
            "ox3000": true,
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "Enjoy your meal."
                },
                {
                    "text": "a three-course meal"
                },
                {
                    "text": "They are learning to cook simple, healthy meals."
                },
                {
                    "text": "Hot meals are not available after 10 o'clock."
                },
                {
                    "text": "Thanks for a delicious meal."
                },
                {
                    "text": "I always want to go to sleep after a heavy meal."
                },
                {
                    "text": "That night he made her favourite meal."
                },
                {
                    "text": "The bar serves light meals."
                },
                {
                    "text": "a meagre meal of bread and cheese"
                },
                {
                    "text": "She has very little time to prepare home-cooked meals."
                },
                {
                    "text": "60 pupils qualified for free school meals."
                },
                {
                    "text": "There's a growing reliance on processed food and ready meals."
                },
                {
                    "text": "The centre offers snacks and a hot midday meal."
                }
            ],
            "collocations": {
                "adjective": ["big", "filling", "heavy"]
            }
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": 3,
            "definition": "grain that has been made into a powder, used as food for animals and for making flour",
            "cefr": "c2",
            "examples": [],
            "topics": ["Farming", "Food"]
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": null,
            "definition": "to spend a lot of time, energy, etc. doing something in a way that other people think is unnecessary and/or annoying",
            "labels": "(informal)",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "Why do you have to make such a meal of everything?"
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "senseNumber": null,
            "definition": "a good meal that satisfies your hunger",
            "examples": [
                {
                    "text": "He looks as though he hasn't had a square meal for weeks."
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "pronunciations": {
        "uk": [
            {
                "pronunciation": "/miːl/",
                "audio": "me/meal/meal__gb_1.mp3"
            }
        ],
        "us": [
            {
                "pronunciation": "/miːl/",
                "audio": "me/meal/meal__us_1.mp3"
            }
        ]
    },
    "wordOrigin": "noun senses 1 to 2 Old English mǣl (also in the sense ‘measure’, surviving in words such as piecemeal ‘measure taken at one time’), of Germanic origin. The early sense of meal involved a notion of “fixed time”; compare with Dutch maal ‘meal, (portion of) time’ and German Mal ‘time’, Mahl ‘meal’, from an Indo-European root meaning ‘to measure’.noun sense 3 Old English melu, meolo, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch meel and German Mehl, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin molere ‘to grind’."
}