From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishgruelgru‧el /ˈɡruːəl/ noun [uncountable] DFa food made of oats cooked in water or milk, which poor people ate in the past
Examples from the Corpus
gruel• And for the rest of the morning on into early afternoon, HsingHsing eats cake and bamboo and carrots and gruel.• I would feed you with hot gruel.• For her Christmas dinner Ellen brought her a bowl of oatmeal gruel.• The high-protein gruel inside is far more valuable than that.• Every morning long lines formed outside, and hundreds of orphans lined up with cans to wait for the gruel.• The consistency should be that of a thick gruel.• Billy coughed when the door was opened, and when he coughed he shit thin gruel.• The steamy yellow gruel in the bucket splashed out on to the kitchen floor.Origin gruel (1300-1400) Old French 