inchmeal

• inch-meal

inch +‎ -meal

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪnt͡ʃ.miːl/

inchmeal (not comparable)

1. gradually, little by little (an inch at a time)
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

     All the infections that the sun sucks up / From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him / By inch-meal a disease!

   • 1725, Daniel Defoe, Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business‎:

     Those who are not thus slippery in the tail, are light of finger; and of these the most pernicious are those who beggar you inchmeal.

   • 1822, Charles and Mary Lamb, The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6)‎:

     I am a sanguinary murderer of time, and would kill him inchmeal just now.

   • 1901, Maurice Hewlett, The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay‎:

     He could be as patient as Death, that inchmeal stalker of his prey; he could be as ruthless as the sea, and incredibly generous upon occasion.