parcel
Americannoun
-
an object, article, container, or quantity of something wrapped or packed up; small package; bundle.
-
a quantity or unit of something, as of a commodity for sale; lot.
-
a group, collection, or assemblage of persons or things.
- Synonyms:
- assortment, batch
-
a distinct, continuous portion or tract of land.
-
a part, portion, or fragment.
verb (used with object)
adverb
noun
-
something wrapped up; package
-
a group of people or things having some common characteristic
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a quantity of some commodity offered for sale; lot
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a distinct portion of land
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an essential part of something (esp in the phrase part and parcel )
verb
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(often foll by up) to make a parcel of; wrap up
-
(often foll by out) to divide (up) into portions
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nautical to bind strips of canvas around (a rope)
adverb
Synonym Usage
See package.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of parcel
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English, from Middle French parcelle, from unattested Late Latin particella, fresh formation for Latin particula; see particle, passel
Explanation
A parcel is a part of something, or a division. It can also be a package or a collection of things wrapped together. Parcel comes from the Anglo-Norman word for "part." Often when we use parcel to mean a part, we're talking about land, which is divided into definable (and purchasable) tracts. As a verb, parcel means to divide something into parts, just as after trick-or-treating you might parcel your candy stash into piles of chocolates, peppermints, or toffees. If you're selling the family farm, you might parcel it into four small plots.
Vocabulary lists containing parcel
"The Great Gatsby," Chapter 1 Vocabulary
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Maus I: My Father Bleeds History
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Revolution in Our Time
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The couple, who share three children, then spent the better part of a year building their dream dwelling on the expansive parcel.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 7, 2026
Jelly Roll later expanded this rural holding with the addition of an adjacent 18.5-acre parcel that was purchased via the same trust for $500,000 in November 2025.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 4, 2026
Meanwhile, FedEx continues to operate as a more focused parcel delivery network, similar to rival UPS UPS 2.99%increase; up pointing triangle , with its express and ground-delivery units.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
The parcel carrier is scheduled to report fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter earnings after the closing bell Wednesday.
From Barron's ● Jun. 23, 2026
He is going over in his mind how the parcel came and how pleased she was.
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
The concept would probably face opposition from Altadenans who have rallied by the hundreds to oppose building permits for multiple homes on individual parcels.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
She runs an organisation supporting other women who have been detained, and, using a secret network, helps send parcels from families to those still in captivity.
From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026
The EU also plans a handling fee to start in November 2026 to help customs authorities with their surging costs as more and more parcels arrive.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
By matching permits to investor owners, The Times found that plans are on file for two-thirds of their parcels, 50% higher than the overall rate for Altadena.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
So when Guinea Fowl and Wild Cat asked her what was in these parcels, she replied only that there was good meat for them to have at the party.
From "The Girl Who Married a Lion: and Other Tales from Africa" by Alexander Mccall Smith
The acres parceled out for Stratos all lie on private, unzoned property, and the landowners there had already granted their blessing.
From Slate ● Jun. 1, 2026
Certain credits are parceled out quarterly or even monthly, and premium cards can have the feel of a coupon book.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2025
A bare-bones framework of an agreement, sketched out on a single sheet of paper, the deal promises $125 million for a journalism fund that will be parceled out to local newsrooms over five years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2024
General Ryder said that 569 metric tons of aid had made it onto Gaza’s shore but that those supplies had yet to be parceled out by humanitarian organizations.
From New York Times ● May 21, 2024
No longer were the university’s resources, parceled out at a few hundred dollars at a time, sufficient for his purposes.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
In the run-up to “One Battle After Another,” DiCaprio played the traditional role of the elusive movie star, parceling out access and promotional appearances.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 12, 2026
California became an agricultural powerhouse by taming its rivers and parceling out their flows.
From New York Times ● Jan. 18, 2024
As he grew in each, he assumed the role of the lovelord, parceling it out to all he came across while saving just enough for himself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 7, 2022
Inside the Weggs’ yellow colonial, on five acres north of Indianapolis, Rodney had been parceling out limited information.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 21, 2021
"I'm thinking of parceling off portions of my brain," I once told her.
From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris
All of Ruth's clothes and toys were parcelled up in a big box, and she reunited with her whole family who had settled in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.
From BBC ● Jan. 26, 2024
Just open up a page and experience the meditative calm of reading alphabetized lists that are parcelled into neat little sections.
From Slate ● Feb. 14, 2020
Indeed, American cultural history could probably be parcelled out as a sequence of sensational murder cases.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 8, 2019
Individual land ownership is often ineffectual for forests and rangelands, which lose their value when parcelled up.
From Economist ● Jul. 14, 2016
That first captain walled their promontory, built their homes and shrines, and parcelled out the black land for the plow.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
Congo-Brazzaville's government has already begun parcelling out blocks of land and looking for potential investors, although there is some uncertainty about the extent and significance of the oil reserves.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2022
Given all this filtering and parcelling out, it’s not surprising that memory is imperfect.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 12, 2014
And once you begin parcelling out roles rather than wrapping them together in a single nightmare bundle, it gets rather easier to find George Entwistle's successor.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 18, 2012
Popular in Czechoslovakia is the Government's policy of seizing the broad acres of great nobles and parcelling them out among the poor.
From Time Magazine Archive
There is no energy generated by the machinery: the work performed by the water in descending is merely the parcelling out and distribution of the work expended in raising it.
From Fragments of science, V. 1-2 by Tyndall, John
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
