different between piece vs chapter

English

Alternative forms

• peece (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English pece, peece, peice, from Old French piece, from Late Latin petia, pettia, possibly from Gaulish *petty?, from Proto-Celtic *k?esdis (“piece, portion”); doublet of English fit, fytte, fytt (“musical piece, chapter”), Icelandic fit (“web”), German Fitze (“skein”), from Old High German *fitjâ. Compare Welsh peth, Breton pez (“thing”), Irish cuid. Compare French pièce, Portuguese peça, Spanish pieza.

Pronunciation

• enPR: p?s, IPA^(key): /pi?s/
• Rhymes: -i?s
• Homophone: peace

Noun

piece (plural pieces)

1. A part of a larger whole, usually in such a form that it is able to be separated from other parts.
2. A single item belonging to a class of similar items
3. (chess) One of the figures used in playing chess, specifically a higher-value figure as distinguished from a pawn; by extension, a similar counter etc. in other games.
   • 1959, Hans Kmoch, Pawn Power in Chess, I:

     Pawns, unlike pieces, move only in one direction: forward.

4. A coin, especially one valued at less than the principal unit of currency.

   a sixpenny piece

5. An artistic creation, such as a painting, sculpture, musical composition, literary work, etc.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:musical composition

6. An article published in the press.
7. (military) An artillery gun.
   • 1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, p. 55,^[1]

     […] 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.

8. (US, colloquial) A gun.
9. (US, Canada, colloquial, short for hairpiece) A toupee or wig, especially when worn by a man.

10. (Scotland, Ireland, Britain, US, dialectal) A slice or other quantity of bread, eaten on its own; a sandwich or light snack.
    • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin 2009, page 46:

      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.

11. (US, colloquial, vulgar) A sexual encounter; from piece of ass or piece of tail.

12. (US, colloquial, mildly vulgar, short for piece of crap/piece of shit) A shoddy or worthless object (usually applied to consumer products like vehicles or appliances).

13. (US, slang) A cannabis pipe.
14. (baseball, uncountable) Used to describe a pitch that has been hit but not well, usually either being caught by the opposing team or going foul. Usually used in the past tense with get.

15. (dated, sometimes derogatory) An individual; a person.
    • c. 1579, Philip Sidney, The Defense of Poesy

      If I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him.

    • 1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aid to Reflection

      His own spirit is as unsettled a piece as there is in all the world.

16. (obsolete) A castle; a fortified building.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Spenser to this entry?)

17. (US) A pacifier; a dummy.

    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:pacifier

18. (colloquial) A distance.

19. (rowing) A structured practice row, often used for performance evaluation.

20. An amount of work to be done at one time; a unit of piece work.

Usage notes

When used as a baseball term, the term is figurative in that the baseball is almost never broken into pieces. It is rare in modern baseball for the cover of a baseball to even partially tear loose. In professional baseball, several new, not previously played baseballs are used in each game.

It could be argued that the phrase was never meant (not even metaphorically) to refer to breaking the ball into pieces, and that "get a piece of the ball" means the bat contacts only a small area of the ball - in other words, that the ball is hit off-center. In that case "get" would mean "succeed in hitting", not "obtain".

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:piece

Derived terms

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: pisi
• ? Finnish: biisi
• ? Japanese: ??? (p?su)

Translations

See also

• chunk
• bit
• peace

Verb

piece (third-person singular simple present pieces, present participle piecing, simple past and past participle pieced)

1. (transitive, usually with together) To assemble (something real or figurative).

   • His adversaries […] pieced themselves together in a joint opposition against him.

2. To make, enlarge, or repair, by the addition of a piece or pieces; to patch; often with out.
3. (slang) To produce a work of graffiti more complex than a tag.

Derived terms

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French piece, from Vulgar Latin *pettia, from Gaulish *petty?, from Proto-Celtic *k?esdis (“piece, portion”).

Noun

piece f (plural pieces)

1. piece, bit, part
2. moment (duration of time)

Descendants

• French: pièce
  • ? Danish: pjece
  • ? Northern Kurdish: piyes
  • ? Norwegian:

    Norwegian Bokmål: piece

  • ? Romanian: pies?
  • ? Russian: ?????? (p?jésa)
    • ? Kazakh: ????? (p?esa)
  • ? Swedish: pjäs
  • ? Yiddish: ??????? (pyese)
• Norman: pièche (Jersey)

References

• piece on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330–1500) (in French)

Old French

Alternative forms

• pece

Etymology

From Late Latin pettia, from Gaulish *petty?, from Proto-Celtic *k?esdis (“piece, portion”).

Noun

piece f (oblique plural pieces, nominative singular piece, nominative plural pieces)

1. piece, bit, part
   • circa 1170, Chrétien de Troyes, Érec et Énide:

     Que del hiaume une piece tranche.

     It cuts a piece off his helmet

Descendants

• Middle French: piece
  • French: pièce
    • ? Danish: pjece
    • ? Northern Kurdish: piyes
    • ? Norwegian:

      Norwegian Bokmål: piece

    • ? Romanian: pies?
    • ? Russian: ?????? (p?jésa)
      • ? Kazakh: ????? (p?esa)
    • ? Swedish: pjäs
    • ? Yiddish: ??????? (pyese)
  • Norman: pièche (Jersey)
• Walloon: pîce
• ? Middle English: pece, pese, pesse, peace, pease, peise, pice, pise, piece, piese, pecche
  • English: piece
    • Sranan Tongo: pisi
    • ? Finnish: biisi
    • ? Japanese: ??? (p?su)
  • Yola: peece
  • ? Middle Irish: pissa
    • Irish: píosa
  • ? Scottish Gaelic: pìos

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p??.t?s?/

Noun

piece m inan

1. inflection of piec:
   1. nominative plural
   2. accusative plural
   3. vocative plural

English

Alternative forms

• chaptre (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English chapiter, from Old French chapitre, from Latin capitulum (“a chapter of a book, in Medieval Latin also a synod or council”), diminutive of caput (“a head”); see capital, capitulum, and chapiter, which are doublets of chapter.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?t??æpt?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?t??æpt?/

Noun

chapter (plural chapters)

1. (authorship) One of the main sections into which the text of a book is divided.

   • At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse military accuracy?; and what she liked best and best understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, turning technicality into pabulum.

2. Certain ecclesiastical bodies (under canon law)
   1. An assembly of monks, or of the prebends and other clergymen connected with a cathedral, conventual, or collegiate church, or of a diocese, usually presided over by the dean.
   2. A community of canons or canonesses.
   3. A bishop's council.
3. A section of a social body.
   1. An administrative division of an organization, usually local to a specific area.
   2. An organized branch of some society or fraternity, such as the Freemasons.
      • 1862, The Freemasons' Monthly Magazine

        If the By-Law which admits honorary members is silent upon their rights, they may perhaps be determined by a consideration of which of these classes was intended by the Chapter in admitting them

4. A meeting of certain organized societies or orders.
5. A chapter house.

   1. (Can we find and add a quotation of Burrill to this entry?)

6. A sequence (of events), especially when presumed related and likely to continue.
   • 1866, Wilkie Collins, Armadale, Book the Last, Chapter I,

     "You know that Mr. Armadale is alive," pursued the doctor, "and you know that he is coming back to England. Why do you continue to wear your widow's dress?" ¶ She answered him without an instant's hesitation, steadily going on with her work. ¶ "Because I am of a sanguine disposition, like you. I mean to trust to the chapter of accidents to the very last. Mr. Armadale may die yet, on his way home."
7. A decretal epistle.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ayliffe to this entry?)

8. (obsolete) A location or compartment.

Synonyms

• ch., chpt. (abbreviations)

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• overarching

Further reading

• chapter in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• chapter in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Verb

chapter (third-person singular simple present chapters, present participle chaptering, simple past and past participle chaptered)

1. To divide into chapters.
2. To put into a chapter.
3. (military, with "out") To use administrative procedure to remove someone.
4. (transitive) To take to task.

Anagrams

• carpeth, chaptre, patcher, pearcht, preacht, repatch