piece
1 of 2noun
ˈpēs 
1
: a part of a whole: such as
a
: fragment
pieces of broken glass
b
: any of the individual members comprising a unit —often used in combination
a five-piece banda three-piece suit
c
: portion, allocation
a piece of the jackpot
2
: an object or individual regarded as a unit of a kind or class
a piece of fruit
3
: a usually unspecified distance
down the road a piece
4
: a standard quantity (as of length, weight, or size) in which something is made or sold
5
: a literary, journalistic, artistic, dramatic, or musical composition
6
: firearm
7
: coin
also : token
8
: a movable object used in playing a board game
specifically : a chessman other than a pawn
9
: opinion, view
spoke his piece
10
a
vulgar : an act of copulation
b
vulgar : the female partner in sexual intercourse
11
: instance, example
silly piece of nonsense
a nice piece of acting
piece
2 of 2verb
pieced; piecing
transitive verb
1
: to repair, renew, or complete by adding pieces : patch
2
: to join into a whole —often used with together
his new book … has been pieced together from talks
Merle Miller
Merle Miller piecer noun
Synonyms
Noun
- bit
- fraction
- fragment
- scrap
Verb
- assemble
- build
- confect
- construct
- erect
- fabricate
- make
- make up
- put up
- raise
- rear
- set up
See all Synonyms & Antonyms 
Example Sentences
Noun Divide the pie into six equal pieces. The cheese was cut into small pieces and arranged on a silver platter. You have a piece of lettuce stuck between your teeth. Her broken bicycle lay in pieces by the side of the road. I watched her rip the letter to pieces and throw it away. There are 12 pieces in this stainless steel knife set. a jigsaw puzzle with 500 pieces We're missing one piece of the puzzle. I took apart the engine piece by piece and put it back together again. Verb you might want to piece together a quilt from those odd patches of cloth See More
Recent Examples on the Web Janelle Gelfand, Cincinnati.com, 19 July 2017 This is why the war stories of Tom Clancy are such convincing and moving pieces of fiction. Janine Barchas, Washington Post, 18 July 2017 Saturday evening, the British Broadcasting Corporation posted a piece about the ancient cypress forest discovered sixty feet underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, attracting the international attention. Ben Raines, AL.com, 17 July 2017 After cutting your lemon (or lime) in half, cut a small piece of skin off of the other side. Carly Breit, Country Living, 14 July 2017 The public offers a piece of its mind Mic's Celeste Katz discloses that Trump's controversial voter fraud panel won't let the public speak at its first meeting on July 19 but did solicit emails. The Hive, 14 July 2017 Alan Jacobs, a professor at Baylor University, has written eloquently about that last piece. Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, 14 July 2017 For those not in the know, Polar Pizza involves a double fudge brownie crust and mint chocolate chip ice cream topped with Oreo cookie pieces. Cole Kazdin, Los Angeles Magazine, 14 July 2017 His beautiful portrait of Ken Moody, one of an edition of ten, was on sale for £25,000 ($31,650), about five times the price of one of Ms Yass’s pieces. The Economist, 13 July 2017 Rachel Pannett, Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2022 Nevertheless, her car was seen there about an hour and a half after leaving the gas station, leaving Alberta trying to piece together what happened that night. Dateline Nbc, NBC News, 17 Aug. 2022 Investigators are working to piece together the fire’s origins. Hannah Frystaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 6 June 2022 Investigators are working to piece together a possible motive for the shooting, which has left questions over its location, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. Travis Caldwell, CNN, 25 Mar. 2021 Escudero-Kontostathis is still trying to piece together parts of time missing from her memory, but remembers meeting and talking to the Muellers, who were visiting from Wisconsin, before they were all struck. Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN, 18 Aug. 2022 To uncover the whole story, astronomers search for many disk-wreathed planetary systems at different stages of evolution, gathering multiple snapshots to piece together in a time line. Briley Lewis, Scientific American, 4 Aug. 2022 Detective Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig, enters the picture and tries to piece together this curious case. Annie Goldsmith, Town & Country, 30 June 2022 In this video, a group of law enforcement officers tries to piece together how events in the church played out. Los Angeles Times, 25 Apr. 2022 See More
Noun
Mazzoli created a lush score that was alternately sweeping or intimate, sensuous or mystical, yet with a distinctive sound that was her own weaving a thread through the piece. Janelle Gelfand, Cincinnati.com, 19 July 2017 This is why the war stories of Tom Clancy are such convincing and moving pieces of fiction. Janine Barchas, Washington Post, 18 July 2017 Saturday evening, the British Broadcasting Corporation posted a piece about the ancient cypress forest discovered sixty feet underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, attracting the international attention. Ben Raines, AL.com, 17 July 2017 After cutting your lemon (or lime) in half, cut a small piece of skin off of the other side. Carly Breit, Country Living, 14 July 2017 The public offers a piece of its mind Mic's Celeste Katz discloses that Trump's controversial voter fraud panel won't let the public speak at its first meeting on July 19 but did solicit emails. The Hive, 14 July 2017 Alan Jacobs, a professor at Baylor University, has written eloquently about that last piece. Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, 14 July 2017 For those not in the know, Polar Pizza involves a double fudge brownie crust and mint chocolate chip ice cream topped with Oreo cookie pieces. Cole Kazdin, Los Angeles Magazine, 14 July 2017 His beautiful portrait of Ken Moody, one of an edition of ten, was on sale for £25,000 ($31,650), about five times the price of one of Ms Yass’s pieces. The Economist, 13 July 2017 Verb
The team includes experts in animal necropsy, and investigators will also interview park officials to help piece together what happened to the tortoises, Ecuadoran prosecutors said. Rachel Pannett, Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2022 Nevertheless, her car was seen there about an hour and a half after leaving the gas station, leaving Alberta trying to piece together what happened that night. Dateline Nbc, NBC News, 17 Aug. 2022 Investigators are working to piece together the fire’s origins. Hannah Frystaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 6 June 2022 Investigators are working to piece together a possible motive for the shooting, which has left questions over its location, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. Travis Caldwell, CNN, 25 Mar. 2021 Escudero-Kontostathis is still trying to piece together parts of time missing from her memory, but remembers meeting and talking to the Muellers, who were visiting from Wisconsin, before they were all struck. Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN, 18 Aug. 2022 To uncover the whole story, astronomers search for many disk-wreathed planetary systems at different stages of evolution, gathering multiple snapshots to piece together in a time line. Briley Lewis, Scientific American, 4 Aug. 2022 Detective Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig, enters the picture and tries to piece together this curious case. Annie Goldsmith, Town & Country, 30 June 2022 In this video, a group of law enforcement officers tries to piece together how events in the church played out. Los Angeles Times, 25 Apr. 2022 See More Word History
Etymology
Noun
Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Vulgar Latin *pettia, of Gaulish origin; akin to Welsh peth thing
First Known Use
Noun
13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Verb
15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Phrases Containing piece
Kids Definition
piece 1 of 2
noun
ˈpēs
1
: a part cut, torn, or broken from something
a piece of pie
2
: one of a group, set, or mass of things
a piece of mail
a three-piece suit
3
: a portion marked off
a piece of land
4
: a single item or example
a piece of news
5
: a definite amount or size in which something is made or sold
a piece of paper
6
: something made or written
a piece of music
7
: a movable object used in playing a board game
a chess piece
8
: coin entry 1 sense 1
a fifty-cent piece
piece
2 of 2verb
pieced; piecing
: to join into a whole : connect the parts or pieces of
I pieced a puzzle together.
piece 1 of 2
noun
1
as in fragment
a broken or irregular part of something that often remains incomplete a piece of stone fell from the crumbling wall Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
- fragment
- bit
- scrap
- fraction
- sliver
- portion
- remnant
- shard
- shred
- section
- segment
- remainder
- leftover
- snippet
- stub
- patch
- speck
- nugget
- splinter
- tatter
- grain
- fleck
- flake
- molecule
- particle
- crumb
- chip
- clipping
- morsel
- shaving
- end
- paring
- snip
- tittle
- dribble
- oddment
- mote
- atom
- shatter
- granule
- cantle
- shiver
- flyspeck
- scruple
- nubbin
2
as in composition
a literary, musical, or artistic production presented a new interpretation of the piece by Mozart Synonyms & Similar Words
- composition
- work
- masterpiece
- opus
- sketch
- showpiece
- number
- classic
- magnum opus
- model
- outline
- oeuvre
- étude
- pièce de résistance
- corpus
- canon
3
as in gun
a portable weapon from which a shot is discharged by gunpowder carrying a piece under his coat Synonyms & Similar Words
- gun
- firearm
- rifle
- arm
- pistol
- small arm
- handgun
- revolver
- shotgun
- heat
- musket
- zip gun
- rod
- machine gun
- tommy gun
- machine pistol
- gat
- fieldpiece
- blunderbuss
- flintlock
- derringer
- submachine gun
- firelock
- breechloader
- smoothbore
- roscoe
- matchlock
- semiautomatic
- automatic
- carbine
- harquebus
- assault rifle
- assault weapon
- culverin
- repeater
- .45
- speargun
- sidearm
- forty-five
- six-gun
- self-loader
- six-shooter
- .22
- arquebus
- twenty-two
- AK-47
4
as in portion
something belonging to, due to, or contributed by an individual member of a group believes his piece of the profits should be higher Synonyms & Similar Words
- portion
- part
- share
- slice
- proportion
- percentage
- cut
- piece of the action
- quota
- allowance
- take
- allotment
- end
- section
- commission
- ration
- segment
- lot
- member
- partition
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
- sum
- total
- whole
- compound
- pool
- composite
- aggregate
- totality
piece
2 of 2verb
as in to build
to form by putting together parts or materials you might want to piece together a quilt from those odd patches of cloth Synonyms & Similar Words
- build
- construct
- assemble
- make
- design
- create
- found
- manufacture
- erect
- set up
- fabricate
- produce
- rear
- shape
- make up
- frame
- put together
- fashion
- confect
- put up
- mold
- coin
- establish
- hammer
- raise
- carpenter
- father
- rebuild
- generate
- handcraft
- institute
- organize
- forge
- concoct
- prefabricate
- devise
- imagine
- reconstruct
- reassemble
- invent
- originate
- constitute
- begin
- combine
- conceive
- innovate
- retrofit
- initiate
- inaugurate
- contrive
- reedify
- throw up
- redevelop
- jerry-build
- unite
- cook (up)
- think (up)
- rig (up)
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
- take down
- tear down
- dismantle
- level
- strike
- disassemble
- destroy
- knock down
- ruin
- pull down
- wreck
- dismember
- smash
- pulverize
- flatten
- separate
- demolish
- shatter
- blow up
- detach
- divide
- raze
- devastate
- demount
- explode
- disconnect
- ruinate
- disengage
- disjoin
- disunite
Synonym Chooser
Some common synonyms of piece are division, fragment, member, part, portion, section, and segment. While all these words mean "something less than the whole," piece applies to a separate or detached part of a whole.
a puzzle with 500 pieces
While in some cases nearly identical to piece, division applies to a large or diversified part.
the manufacturing division of the company
While the synonyms fragment and piece are close in meaning, fragment applies to a part produced by or as if by breaking off.
only a fragment of the play still exists
In some situations, the words member and piece are roughly equivalent. However, member suggests one of the functional units composing a body.
a structural member
The words part and piece can be used in similar contexts, but part is a general term appropriate when indefiniteness is required.
they ran only part of the way
Although the words portion and piece have much in common, portion implies an assigned or allotted part.
cut the pie into six portions
The meanings of section and piece largely overlap; however, section applies to a relatively small or uniform part.
the entertainment section of the newspaper
The words segment and piece are synonyms, but do differ in nuance. Specifically, segment applies to a part separated or marked out by or as if by natural lines of cleavage.
the retired segment of the population