piece
/piːs
/noun
1A portion of an object or of material, produced by cutting, tearing, or breaking the whole: a piece of cheese the dish lay in pieces on the floor...
- In a second the whole sword was broken in pieces and Kashiro's attack continued.
- Sections of main roads are completely broken to pieces.
- Then she took out a lump of sandalwood from the wall cupboard, washed it, broke it in pieces, dissolved it in water and cleaned her face and arms with the paste.
Synonyms
bit, section, slice, chunk, segment, lump, hunk;
wedge, slab, knob, block, cake, bar, tablet, brick, cube, stick, length;
offcut, sample, particle, fragment, flake, sliver, splinter, wafer, chip, crumb, grain, speck, scrap, remnant, shred, shard, snippet, mite;
mouthful, morsel
British informal wodge
broken, in bits, shattered, smashed, in smithereens
informal bust
1.1An item used in constructing something: take a car to pieces...
- The scribble is constructed from 229 separate pieces of steel, weighs 25 tonnes and has 72 twists.
- All of the pieces are cast or constructed in nonferrous metals, so that they resonate musically.
- Sometimes pieces of the construct will be inserted as well as, or instead of, the full construct.
Synonyms
component, part, bit, section, segment, constituent, element;
unit, module
1.2An item forming part of a set: a piece of luggage...
- We treat house plants like a piece of the furniture that fills the same space in a room all year round.
- The group consists of 32 dancers, eight singers and a 13 - piece band.
- Five female vocalists belted out soul classics backed by a 14 - piece band.
1.3A financial share: each employee owns a piece of the company...
- When you buy a share of stock, you purchase a piece of the company. You become part owner of the company.
- Unlike buying equity, investors do not own a piece of the company or government entity.
- You can now give the gift of share ownership to a fan of The Walt Disney Company so they can own a piece of the company.
Synonyms
share, slice, portion, quota, part, bit, percentage, amount, quantity, ration, fraction, division, subdivision;
allocation, allotment, measure, apportionment
informal cut, whack, rake-off
rare quantum, moiety
2A written, musical, or artistic creation: a haunting piece of music...
- We're not trying to just write songs, we're trying to write musical pieces.
- His close friendships with women produced some of the best-known pieces of music ever written by any composer; but they did not secure him a wife.
- A child prodigy, he wrote his first piece of music at the age of five and completed his first symphony at the age of eight.
Synonyms
work of art, work;
musical work, composition, creation, production, opus
article, item, story, report, essay, study, review, composition, paper, column
3An instance or example: a crucial piece of evidence...
- Changing the public mood would require three crucial pieces of evidence.
- But the crucial piece of evidence would be a description of a possible attacker.
- It also showed that a crucial piece of evidence was a baseball cap dropped by the murderer as he ran from the off licence.
Synonyms
example, specimen, sample, instance, illustration, occurrence, case
4 [with modifier] A coin of specified value: a 10p piece...
- Is there any risk that the two euro coin will be mistaken for the Thai 10 baht piece, whose face value is eight times less?
- They also included a selection of threepenny bits, a 1916 halfpenny and a penny piece from 1921.
- Well, you have to admit it's slightly more plausible than upping the value of the penny piece to £1.
5A figure or token used to make moves in a board game: a chess piece...
- She was sat on her desk, moving some puzzles' pieces, trying to figure out something, maybe an image, or a letter.
- Knowing this, you can try and figure out which pieces are which simply by how they're being moved.
- It was an abstract race game called Tempo in which pieces were moved not by the roll of the dice, but by the playing of cards.
Synonyms
token, counter, man, disc, chip, marker
5.1 Chess A king, queen, bishop, knight, or rook, as opposed to a pawn: indicate which piece or pawn is taken...
- Here, however, you will find more coverage of endgames with more pieces and pawns.
- This can be done by a pawn break or by a sacrifice involving pieces or pawns.
- Though the Queen is the strongest piece, it is vulnerable to attack by weaker enemy units.
6 informal, chiefly North American A firearm.Not every man knows his way around a shooting piece, but firearms are a manly art....
- It will be surrounded by a two metre-deep trench and have only one entrance, which will be protected by artillery pieces and machine gun posts.
- The cavalry turned in its horses for pack mules because mules could carry artillery pieces through rugged terrain.
7 informal, offensive A woman.
8Scottish A sandwich or other item of food taken as a snack.
verb [with object]
1 (piece something together) Assemble something from parts or pieces: the dinosaur was pieced together from 119 bones...
- In order to cover all the sky with a single beam, astronomers must piece it together from millions of separate observations, each of a single point.
- Here, two irregular hemispheres were pieced together, as evidenced by a prominent groove that runs around the middle.
- She says ‘I took this image of her in four separate images and pieced it together in Photoshop.’
Synonyms
put together, assemble, compose, construct, join up, fit together, join, unite, reassemble, reconstruct, put back together, mend, repair, patch up, sew (up);
build up a picture/impression of
1.1Slowly make sense of something from separate pieces of evidence: Daniel had pieced the story together from the radio...
- Anyone who has been awake and alert should have pieced the evidence together sufficiently to arrive at an understanding consistent with the one summarized in the Post story.
- When the evidence is pieced together, it seems that evolution prepared what society later moulded: a brain to believe.
- He's just got to judge the evidence as he pieces it together.
2 (piece something out) archaic Extend something: his coming and assisting them was like a cordial given to a dying man, which doth piece out his life...
- The Bishop simply "takes notice that the creed was pieced out."
3 archaic Patch (something): if it be broken it must be pieced...
- Many of the designs feature piecing fabric, colour blocking, quilting, and many are reversible as well.
- Occasionally, a stenciled bedcover was pieced with traditional quilt blocks but was not quilted.
- No matter how she pieced them, they contorted into something unacceptable.
Phrases
a piece of ass (or tail)
a piece of cake
a piece (or slice) of the action
come (or fall) to pieces
go to pieces
in one piece
(all) of a piece
piece by piece
piece of water
piece of work
say one's piece
tear (or pull) someone/thing to pieces
Origin
Middle English: from Old French piece (compare with medieval Latin pecia, petium), of obscure ultimate origin.
Rhymes
- irredentist
- irreducibility
- irreducible
- irreducibly
- irreflexive
- irreformable
- irrefragable
- irrefragably
- irrefrangible
- irrefutability
- irrefutable
- irrefutably
- irreg.
- irregardless
- irregular
- irregularity
- irregularly
- irregular verb
- irrelative
- irrelatively
- irrelevance
- irrelevancy
- irrelevant
- irrelevantly
- irreligion