morsel

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English morsel,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French morsel,^{[4][5][6][7][8]} which is recorded from about 1120 and became morceau.^[4][6][7][9] Anglo-Norman had the word from the early 12th century,^[10] also as mossel and musel.^[4] Medieval Latin morsellus is recorded in British sources from the 12th century.^[4][2] The French word is a diminutive of mors (“a bite”), with the suffix -el,^[4][11][7] and that noun is from Latin morsus (“a biting, a bite”),^[5][9][12] or from its neuter morsum (“something bitten off”) in other accounts,^[6][8][13] the past participle of mordeō (“to bite”).^{[6][8][14][9]} Etymonline takes the verb as perhaps from an extended form of Proto-Indo-European *mer- (“to rub away, harm”),^[6] and the American Heritage Dictionary also refers it to that root.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A bite or mouthful, a small piece of food: about 1300, in the life of Saint Vincent in the Early South-English Legendary.^[4][2] Barnhart dates the word to about 1280,^[15][5] and Etymonline to the late 13th century.^[6] The word also appears as a surname in England from the later 12th century, though the OED leaves open whether these records are Middle English or Anglo-Norman.^[4]

Semantic evolution

A morsel is literally a piece bitten off,^[12] and Weekley compares the English pair bit and bite.^[16] In the 14th century the word widened in two directions: to a small piece of anything, as in the Diuersa Servicia of 1381, and to a whole dish, a light meal in the Wycliffite Bible (before 1382) or a choice dish in Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale (about 1390).^[4] Weekley saw the old sense in the phrase dainty morsel and quoted Wyclif's "He sendeth his cristal as morselis" for the Vulgate's buccellas.^[16] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a piece fit for the mouth", with quotations from Shakespeare.^[17] Hoccleve's use of the word for a person (before 1450) led on to an attractive girl and, humorously, a small person or a child.^[4] From 1779 it also meant the slightest amount of something, mostly in negative contexts.^[4] The English Dialect Dictionary found this use widely in colloquial speech, with forms such as mossel in Man, Derbyshire, Berkshire, Surrey and Cornwall.^[18] The verb is a conversion of the noun, first recorded in 1598 in Florio's dictionary, glossing an Italian verb for biting.^[4][14]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – a bite or mouthful, a small piece of food.^[4][2] Barnhart dates it to about 1280.^[5]
• c. 1325 – without of, as in a morsel bread (obsolete by 1528).^[4]
• 1381 – a small piece of anything, a fragment.^[4]
• before 1382 – a small meal, a snack.^[4]
• c. 1390 – a choice dish, a titbit.^[4]
• c. 1425 – figurative use.^[4]
• before 1450 – applied to a person.^[4]
• 1598 – verb, to divide into small pieces.^[4][14]
• 1779 – the slightest amount or degree.^[4]
• 1855 – verb, morsel out, to distribute in small lots (obsolete by 1868).^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small piece or mouthful of food: She fed the dog a morsel of chicken.^[19][14][4]
2. A small piece or amount of anything; a scrap: He had not a morsel of evidence.^[19][14][4]
3. A choice dish; a delicacy or titbit.^[4][11]
4. (chiefly regional) A small meal; a snack.^[14][4][11]
5. Humorously, a small person, especially a child; also an attractive girl or woman.^[4][11]
6. (Irish, informal) A term of endearment for a child.^[19]

Verb

1. To divide into small pieces, or to share out in small amounts.^[14][4][11]

Related words

• mordant
• remorse
• morceau
• morse
• mordacious
• mordacity
• smart

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
19. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins