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MORSEL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A small amount of solid food; a mouthful
Example:
all they had left was a bit of bread
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting foods and drinks
Hypernyms ("morsel" is a kind of...):
mouthful; taste (a small amount eaten or drunk)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "morsel"):
chaw; chew; cud; plug; quid; wad (a wad of something chewable as tobacco)
crumb (small piece of e.g. bread or cake)
sop; sops (piece of solid food for dipping in a liquid)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A small quantity of anything
Example:
a morsel of paper was all he needed
Classified under:
Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure
Hypernyms ("morsel" is a kind of...):
small indefinite amount; small indefinite quantity (an indefinite quantity that is below average size or magnitude)
Context examples:
But this I conceived was to be the least of my misfortunes; for, as human creatures are observed to be more savage and cruel in proportion to their bulk, what could I expect but to be a morsel in the mouth of the first among these enormous barbarians that should happen to seize me?
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first chapter; but she spoke of him as a morsel of English Grammar.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that's all.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
However, the wolf thought he was in joke, and came one night to get a dainty morsel.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
If we do so, you just say to us, as old Chloe did in Uncle Tom, 'Tink ob yer marcies, chillen!' 'Tink ob yer marcies!' added Jo, who could not, for the life of her, help getting a morsel of fun out of the little sermon, though she took it to heart as much as any of them.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
“Oh, my goodness, how polite we are!” exclaimed Miss Mowcher, making a preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a hand.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag again.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
“Ha! ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, ain't we, my sweet child?” replied that morsel of a woman, feeling in the bag with her head on one side and her eye in the air.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
