parcel — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A package wrapped, as for shipment or transport.

   Synonyms

   package

   Examples

   I saw a brown paper parcel on my doorstep.

   More examples (2)

   At twilight in the summer[…]the mice come out. They[…]eat the luncheon crumbs. Mr. Checkly, for instance, always brought his dinner in a paper parcel in his coat-tail pocket, and ate it when so disposed, sprinkling crumbs lavishly[…]on the floor.

   “H'm !” he said, “so, so—it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what […] will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday […] that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth. […]”

2. An individual consignment of cargo for shipment, regardless of size and form.

3. An individual item appearing on an invoice or receipt (only in the phrase bill of parcels).

4. A division of land bought and sold as a unit.

   Synonyms

   plot

   Examples

   I own a small parcel of land between the refinery and the fish cannery.

5. A group of birds.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

6. An indiscriminate or indefinite number, measure, or quantity; a collection; a group.

   Examples

   […] this youthful parcel / Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,

   More examples (2)

   "Come, now," said the hill-man, "let us hear who else is to be at the christening?" "Ah," said the boy, "we are to have a great parcel of strangers and great people."

   […] instead of sitting (as she ought to have done) by her good father and mother, she must needs run up into the gallery, and sit with a parcel of giddy creatures of her own age […]

7. A small amount of food that has been wrapped up, for example a pastry.

8. A portion of anything taken separately; a fragment of a whole; a part.

   Examples

   A certain piece of land is part and parcel of another piece.

   The same Experiments succeed on two Parcels of the White of an Egg […]

   More examples (2)

   1881, John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy, Volume 5, Part I, New York: Henry Holt, Chapter 1, p. 2, The parcels of the nation adopted different forms of self-government, sought divers foreign alliances.

   I don't think we are sitting pretty / So far away from our fair city / But I love you more than any parcel of earth.

Verb

1. To wrap something up into the form of a package.

2. To wrap a strip around the end of a rope.

   Examples

   Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way.

3. To divide and distribute by parts or portions; often with off, out or into.

   Examples

   Their woes are parcell’d, mine are general.

   Thoſe ghoſtly Kings would parcel out my pow’r, / And all the fatneſs of my Land devour;

   More examples (2)

   Hindostan was then parcelled out into twelve grand divisions, called soobahs, to each of which a viceroy was assigned, by the title of Soobahdar, corruptly written Soobah by European writers; for, soobah signifies province: many of these soobahs were in extent equal to large European kingdoms.

   Then the great Hall was wholly broken down, / And the broad woodland parcell’d into farms;

4. To add a parcel or item to; to itemize.

   Examples

   […] that mine own servant should / Parcel the sum of my disgraces by / Addition of his envy!

Adverb

1. Part or half; in part; partially.

   Usage

   • not-comparable
   • Obsolete

   Examples

   Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet […]

   […] as the worthy dame was parcel blind and more than parcel deaf, knowledge was excluded by two principal entrances […]

   More examples (1)

   here was one [a hut] that, summer-blanch’d, / Was parcel-bearded with the traveller’s-joy / In Autumn, parcel ivy-clad;

Noun

1. a wrapped container

   Synonyms

   package

   Broader terms

   container

2. the allotment of some amount by dividing something

   Synonyms

   portionshare

   Broader terms

   allotmentapportionmentapportioningallocationparcelingparcellingassignation

   Examples

   death gets more than its share of attention from theologians

3. an extended area of land

   Synonyms

   tractpiece of landpiece of groundparcel of land

   Broader terms

   geographical areageographic areageographical regiongeographic region

4. a collection of things wrapped or boxed together

   Synonyms

   packagebundlepacket

   Broader terms

   collectionaggregationaccumulationassemblage

Verb

1. divide into parts

   Broader terms

   dividesplitsplit upseparatedissevercarve up

   Examples

   The developers parceled the land

2. cover with strips of canvas

   Broader terms

   cover

   Examples

   parcel rope

3. make into a wrapped container

   Broader terms

   wrapwrap up