: done, made, or accomplished piece by piece or in a fragmentary way
piecemeal reforms in the system
Examples of piecemeal in a Sentence
Adverb
remodeled their house piecemeal because of budgetary constraints
one well-aimed blow ripped the piñata piecemeal
Adjective
They've done piecemeal repairs in the past, but the bridge now needs major reconstruction.
Some people want the changes to be made all at once, but I think we should take a more piecemeal approach.
Recent Examples on the Web
Yevhen Parokhod, Forbes.com, 26 May 2026
Characteristically, McMurtry wasn’t keen on being the subject of a full biography; Streitfeld, after befriending him, won his cooperation piecemeal.
—The Week Us, TheWeek, 21 Apr. 2026
ABC News, 11 June 2026
Called Agent Pay for Machines, the new network is meant to make smaller money transfers easier when, for example, an AI agent wants to access data piecemeal from a website.
—Ben Weiss, Fortune, 10 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for piecemeal
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Adverb
Teams are busy doing their day-to-day work and putting out fires, and the information ends up living piecemeal across disparate systems or, worse, in different people’s heads.
—Yevhen Parokhod, Forbes.com, 26 May 2026
Characteristically, McMurtry wasn’t keen on being the subject of a full biography; Streitfeld, after befriending him, won his cooperation piecemeal.
—The Week Us, TheWeek, 21 Apr. 2026
Adjective
Many residents praise him for championing the city, and for taking a piecemeal public transport system under municipal control as the Bee Network.
—ABC News, 11 June 2026
Called Agent Pay for Machines, the new network is meant to make smaller money transfers easier when, for example, an AI agent wants to access data piecemeal from a website.
—Ben Weiss, Fortune, 10 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for piecemeal
Cite this Entry
“Piecemeal.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piecemeal. Accessed 17 Jun. 2026.
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