piece – English noun declension

English noun forms of piece

Noun: piece
Singularpiece
Pluralpieces

Sample Sentences

  • Near-synonyms: aspect, portion
  • I’d like another piece of pie.
  • I've lost a piece of this jigsaw puzzle.
  • No man is an Iland, intire of it ſelfe; euery man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; […] [1624, John Donne, “17. Meditation”, in Deuotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Seuerall Steps in My Sicknes: […], London: […] A[ugustine] M[atthews] for Thomas Iones, →OCLC, pages 415–416:]
  • a piece of machinery
  • a piece of software
  • a useful piece of advice
  • "Squalled at me that she owned the business and that she wouldn't take any back talk from me and that the piece wasn't for sale. What could I do?" [1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 156:]
  • [The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, […] [2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:]
  • Pawns, unlike pieces, move only in one direction: forward. [1959, Hans Kmoch, Pawn Power in Chess, section I:]
  • It is not permitted to move a piece to a square occupied by a piece of the same colour. […] Consequently, in the initial position the white pieces and pawns are placed on the first and second ranks; the black pieces and pawns on the eighth and seventh ranks. [2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, pages 4, 21:]
  • a sixpenny piece
  • period piece
  • She played two beautiful pieces on the piano.
  • Now, his pieces are in the collections of institutions like the Smithsonian American Art Museum and The Met, where they operate the way Frey always intended: as works of art. [2026 May 26, Hannah Martin, “Fancy Baskets”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 97:]
  • Today's paper has an interesting piece on medical research.
  • No, I didn't read the piece on China's faceless masses, I was, I was checking out the lingerie ads. [1979, Woody Allen, Manhattan, spoken by Isaac Davis (Woody Allen):]
  • […] all our Ammunition was spent. Those of us who had Money made Slugs of it; their next Shift was to take the middle Screws out of their Guns, and charge their Pieces with them. [1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, page 55:]
  • He's packin' a piece!
  • I wanted peace, but now my piece is clearing out the block. [2005, “Bloody War”, in Certified, performed by David Banner:]
  • It was do or be done. Get or get gotten. It was self-preservation like I'd never felt before, and when Rome passed me his piece I didn't even hesitate as I raised that bitch in the air and aimed it at Vyreen. [2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 116:]
  • "This is just a cover story," Clay says to O5-8, not taking his eyes off Marion. "It's a good one, but she's had it worked out in advance."
  • "Clay, lose the piece," says the O5.
  • Grudgingly, Clay does so. [2008–2021, qntm, “We Need To Talk About Fifty-Five”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 9:]
  • The announcer is wearing a new piece.
  • My grannie came and gived them all a piece and jam and cups of water then I was to bring them back out to the street and play a game. [2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 46:]
  • I got a piece at lunchtime.
  • Ugh, my new computer is such a piece. I'm taking it back to the store tomorrow.
  • he got a piece of that one; she got a piece of the ball[…]and it's going foul.
  • If I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him. [a. 1587 (date written), Phillip Sidney [i.e., Philip Sidney], An Apologie for Poetrie. […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Henry Olney, […], published 1595, →OCLC; republished as Edward Arber, editor, An Apologie for Poetrie (English Reprints), London: [Alexander Murray & Son], 1 April 1868, →OCLC:]
  • Thy mother was a piece of virtue. [1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv]:]
  • His own spirit is as unsettled a piece as there is in all the world. [1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aid to Reflection:]
  • Then enteryng into league with Philip the French king, he receyued againe all the holdes and peeces which his father had loſt a little before, […] [1569, Richard Grafton, “The Seuenth Age, and Seuenth Part of this Chronicle”, in A Chronicle at Large and Meere History of the Affayres of Englande […], volume I, London: […] Henry Denham, […], for Richarde Tottle and Humffrey Toye, →OCLC, page 83:]
  • the ranſack of that peece [1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XIV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:]
  • a far piece
  • located a fair piece away from their camp
  • I never did believe that he was in it. He's a piece too mean-spirited to have the nerve. [1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC:]
  • At practice we rowed four 5,000 meter pieces.
  • That last piece was torture.
  • In fact, that was back during the era when you could buy a piece of heroin, an ounce of heroin, for $500 and cut it three times for a 3-to-1 cut on it and the dope would still be good. [2017, Matt Meyer, Déqui Kioni-Sadiki, Sekou Odinga, Look for Me in the Whirlwind:]

Etymology

From Middle English pece, peece, peice, from Old French piece, from Late Latin petia, pettia, possibly from Gaulish *pettyā, from Proto-Celtic *kʷezdis (“piece, portion, quota”). Compare Welsh peth, Breton pez (“thing”), Irish cuid. Compare French pièce, Portuguese peça, Spanish pieza, Italian pezza, Italian pezzo. See: Middle English Nouns 'pece', Irish Nouns 'cuid', French Nouns 'pièce', Portuguese Nouns 'peça', Spanish Nouns 'pieza', Italian Nouns 'pezza', Italian Nouns 'pezzo'.

Verbs referencing "piece"

Finnish Nouns biisi.