inchmeal

adv

1. (idiomatic, not-comparable)Gradually, little by little (an inch at a time).

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

   “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.”

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

   “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.”