1.  Small stones, or fragments of stone; very small pebbles, often intermixed with particles of sand. [1913 Webster]

2.  A deposit of small calculous concretions in the kidneys and the urinary or gall bladder; also, the disease of which they are a symptom. [1913 Webster]

1.  To cover with gravel; as, to gravel a walk. [1913 Webster]

2.  To run (as a ship) upon the gravel or beach; to run aground; to cause to stick fast in gravel or sand. [1913 Webster]
"When we were fallen into a place between two seas, they graveled the ship." [1913 Webster]
"Willam the Conqueror . . . chanced as his arrival to be graveled; and one of his feet stuck so fast in the sand that he fell to the ground." [1913 Webster]

3.  To check or stop; to embarrass; to perplex. [1913 Webster]
"When you were graveled for lack of matter." [1913 Webster]
"The physician was so graveled and amazed withal, that he had not a word more to say." [1913 Webster]

4.  To hurt or lame (a horse) by gravel lodged between the shoe and foot. [1913 Webster]

gravel, n. & v.
--n.
1 a a mixture of coarse sand and small water-worn or pounded stones, used for paths and roads and as an aggregate. b Geol. a stratum of this.
2 Med. aggregations of crystals formed in the urinary tract.
--v.tr. (gravelled, gravelling; US graveled, graveling)
1 lay or strew with gravel.
2 perplex, puzzle, nonplus (from an obs. sense 'run (a ship) aground').

Idiom:
gravel-blind literary almost completely blind ('more than sand-blind', in Shakesp. Merchant of Venice II. ii. 33).

Etymology:
ME f. OF gravel(e) dimin. of grave (as GRAVE(4))

VB  be difficult, run one hard, go against the grain, try one's patience, put one out, put to one's shifts, put to one's wit's end, go hard with one, try one, pose, perplex, bother, nonplus, gravel, bring to a deadlock, be impossible, be in the way of, meet with difficulties, labor under difficulties, get into difficulties, plunge into difficulties, struggle with difficulties, contend with difficulties, grapple with difficulties, labor under a disadvantage, be in difficulty, fish in troubled waters, buffet the waves, swim against the stream, scud under bare poles, Have much ado with, have a hard time of it, come to the push, come to the pinch, bear the brunt, grope in the dark, lose one's way, weave a tangled web, walk among eggs, get into a scrape, bring a hornet's nest about one's ears, be put to one's shifts, flounder, boggle, struggle, not know which way to turn, perdre son Latin, stick at, stick in the mud, stick fast, come to a stand, come to a standstill, come to a deadlock, hold the wolf by the ears, hold the tiger by the tail, render difficult, enmesh, encumber, embarrass, ravel, entangle, put a spoke in the wheel, lead a pretty dance.

N  land, earth, ground, dry land, terra firma, continent, mainland, peninsula, chersonese, delta, tongue of land, neck of land, isthmus, oasis, promontory, highland, coast, shore, scar, strand, beach, playa, bank, lea, seaboard, seaside, seabank, seacoast, seabeach, ironbound coast, loom of the land, derelict, innings, alluvium, alluvion, ancon, riverbank, river bank, levee, soil, glebe, clay, loam, marl, cledge, chalk, gravel, mold, subsoil, clod, clot, rock, crag, acres, real estate, landsman, earthy, continental, midland, coastal, littoral, riparian, alluvial, terrene, landed, predial, territorial, geophilous, ripicolous, ashore, on shore, on land.

bank gravel, gravel pit, pit-run gravel