piecemeal

adj

1. (idiomatic, not-comparable)Made or done in pieces or one stage at a time.

   “Near-synonyms: piecewise, stepwise; see also Thesaurus:gradual”

   “a piecemeal approach”

   “Such assistance, I am convinced, must not be on a piecemeal basis, as various crises develop.”

   “But the copious and intertwined associative links warrant our accepting the former alternative: cyclamen—favourite flower—favourite food— artichokes; pulling to pieces like an artichoke, leaf by leaf (a phrase constantly ringing in our ears in relation to the piecemeal dismemberment of the Chinese Empire)—herbarium—bookworms, whose favourite food is books.”

   “We should not underestimate European laypeople. They were perfectly capable of thinking for themselves, particularly about death, a religious theme in which everyone had an investment and about which everyone was likely to have an opinion. There is no need to invoke the idea of systematic pagan survival to account for this: Europe’s mass Christianization had been a steady if piecemeal process from the sixth century through to the fourteenth.”

adv

1. (not-comparable)Piece by piece; in small amounts, stages, or degrees.

   “It’s as bad as selling a man a horse with half a dozen latent vices and watching him discover them piecemeal in the course of the hunting season.”

   “The Western Region route, by contrast, was built up piecemeal and was not shaped in its present form until 1910.”

   “The Government is under fresh pressure not to sell off piecemeal the route of the abandoned northern extension to Manchester until extra rail capacity has been clearly identified.”

2. (not-comparable)Into pieces or parts.

   “Stoop villaine, ſtoop, ſtoope for ſo he bids, That may commaund thee peecemeale to be torne, Or ſcattered like the lofty Cedar trees. Strooke with the voice of thundring Iupiter.”

   “A few years ago also there was the case of Kate Webster, who at Richmond murdered her mistress, and, fiend-like, cut the body up piecemeal, and tried to dispose of it in various ways by small portions.”

verb

1. (transitive)To divide or distribute piecemeal; dismember.

noun

1. A fragment; a scrap.

   “Thus the world Is all to piecemeals cut”

   “The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more: the names only are left, and those (for many of them are wrong spelt) are falling themselves by piecemeals to decay.”