1. Thin gruel made with water instead of milk.
14[?]. Rules & Const. Nuns Syon, lvi. in Aungier, Syon (1840), 393. On water dayes sche schal ordeyne for bonnes or newe brede, water grewel.
1589. R. Harvey, Pl. Perc., Ded. Like a whelp that had scalded his mouth with lapping vp hotte water Grewell.
1667. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), II. 100. 5s. for currans and raisons, oatmell, sugar, and pruans, to make water gruell.
1705. E. Ward, Hudibras Rediv., IV. 8. So have I seen … A sick Man sipping Water-Gruel.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, IX. iv. Breakfast on water-gruel.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xli. She was glad to acquiesce, and even to go to bed, and drink water-gruel.
1852. J. Savory, Dom. Med. (ed. 4), 310. Water Gruel. Put a large spoonful of oatmeal, or fine Indian meal, by degrees into a pint of water, and when smooth, boil it.
attrib. 1871. A. Meadows, Midwifery (ed. 2), 170. The old-fashioned tea and water-gruel system has, it is to be hoped, long since ceased to be.
† 2. fig. as the type of what is insipid. Chiefly attrib. (quasi-adj.), namby-pamby, characterless.
c. 1613. Middleton, No Wit like Woman’s, II. iii. Though he [a wooer] have thousands, And come with a poor Water-gruel spirit,… he shall ne’r speed.
1703. Motteux, Prol. to Farquhar’s Inconstant, 14. Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft, and chaste, Are water-gruel, without salt or taste.
1753. Foote, Englishm. in Paris, I. i. Their water-gruel jaws sunk in a thicket of curls, appear for all the world like a lark in a soup-dish!
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 430. Had I continued it [fasting] till this time, I believe my chapters would have dissolved into a water-gruel style.
1784. R. Bage, Barham Downs, II. 129. A pretty, sweet, smiling, flexible, insipid, water-gruel girl.
1811. Miss L. M. Hawkins, C’tess & Gertr., I. 76. His wife, a mere water-gruel character.
Hence † Water-gruellish a.
1812. Sarah, Lady Lyttelton, Lett., 28 April, Corr., v. (1912), 132. I was of the greatest use in putting in a water-gruellish sort of observation every now and then, just to fill up the pauses.
