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Glite Dictionary
Indian meal

Indian meal

8.0
Corn ground into coarse pieces that people use for food
  • noun
  • /ˈɪndiən miːl/
  • Archaic
translation icon : harina de maíz
  • In some regions, Indian meal is still used to make traditional cornbread and pudding.

Examples

  • I bought some Indian meal for dinner.

  • She baked a rustic loaf using Indian meal and whole wheat flour.

  • Early settlers in America relied heavily on Indian meal as a basic ingredient for bread and porridge.

  • The recipe calls for Indian meal and spices.

  • I made cornbread using Indian meal for dinner last night.

  • She enjoyed a traditional recipe that included Indian meal and spices.

  • For breakfast, he prepared pancakes with Indian meal and maple syrup.

Synonyms

meal
vsIndian meal
133 4.6

Grain ground into small pieces used for cooking or eating

is narrower meaning coarse flour only from a particular cereal grain
cornmeal
vsIndian meal
  • US
18 2.3

Ground dried corn used in cooking and baking

is the same coarse flour but more specifically from that one grain

Surface Forms

Indian meal singular
Indian meals plural

Morphology

Indian + meal

The meaning 'coarsely ground corn' is not transparently derived from 'Indian' (commonly understood as pertaining to India) + 'meal' (ground cereal); a B1 learner would more likely infer a meal from India or an Indian-style dish. The usage is historical/lexicalized (from 'Indian corn' = maize, i.e. Native American origin) and the referent is not predictable from the surface constituents, so it is opaque to learners.

Etymology

Indian meal comes from early American settlers who learned from Native Americans to grind corn into a coarse powder for bread and porridge. The word Indian points to the people who taught the method and meal used to mean 'ground grain', so today Indian meal means 'coarsely ground corn'.