Parcel

How to spell parcel

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce parcel

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does parcel mean?

1. nounA wrapped or boxed bundle of goods, usually sent by post or courier.
2. verbTo divide something into portions and distribute or allocate them.

Parcel in a sentence

• noun

  The courier left a parcel on the doorstep this morning.

• verb

  The manager will parcel out the tasks among the team this afternoon.

• noun

  She wrapped the gift and posted the parcel before the holiday rush.

• verb

  They decided to parcel the land into smaller building plots.

Where does parcel come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the Old French parcelle, meaning 'a small part' or 'a portion', which descended from the Vulgar Latin particella, a diminutive of the Latin particula, 'a little part'. That in turn was a diminutive of pars (stem part-), the ordinary Latin word for 'a part' or 'a share', the same root that gives us 'particle', 'partition' and 'particular'. English took the word over in the 1300s, first in the sense of a portion or fragment of something larger, as still survives in the legal phrase 'part and parcel'. Only later, by the 1600s, did it settle into the familiar meaning of a wrapped bundle of goods, a package made up of a measured portion of items. The single 'c' followed by 'el', rather than a doubled consonant or an '-le' ending, is the spelling trap, and remembering the 'part' inside parcel helps keep the soft 'c' in mind.

How the word is built

• parc- (small part, from Latin particella)
• -el (diminutive ending)