different between piece vs scandal

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

Etymology

From Middle French scandale (“indignation caused by misconduct or defamatory speech”), from Ecclesiastical Latin scandalum (“that on which one trips, cause of offense”, literally “stumbling block”), from Ancient Greek ????????? (skándalon, “a trap laid for an enemy, a cause of moral stumbling”), from Proto-Indo-European *skand- (“to jump”). Cognate with Latin scand? (“to climb”). First attested from Old Northern French escandle, but the modern word is a reborrowing. Doublet, via Old French esclandre, of slander.

Sense evolution from "cause of stumbling, that which causes one to sin, stumbling block" to "discredit to reputation, that which brings shame, thing of disgrace" is possibly due to early influence from other similar sounding words for infamy and disgrace (compare Old English scand (“ignominity, scandal, disgraceful thing”), Old High German scanda (“ignominy, disgrace”), Gothic ???????????????????????? (skanda, “shame, disgrace”)). See shand, shend.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?skænd?l/
• Rhymes: -ænd?l

Noun

scandal (countable and uncountable, plural scandals)

1. An incident or event that disgraces or damages the reputation of the persons or organization involved.
   • 1990, House of Cards, Season 1, Episode 1:

     Well, yes, a couple of leaks are all very well, but it takes more than that... A big scandal perhaps. A political scandal. Or a scandal about something people really understand: Sex... or money.
2. Damage to one's reputation.
3. Widespread moral outrage, indignation, as over an offence to decency.

4. (theology) Religious discredit; an act or behaviour which brings a religion into discredit.
5. (theology) Something which hinders acceptance of religious ideas or behaviour; a stumbling-block or offense.
6. Defamatory talk; gossip, slander.
   • 1855, Anthony Trollope, The Warden, chapter 1

     Scandal at Barchester affirmed that had it not been for the beauty of his daughter, Mr. Harding would have remained a minor canon; but here probably Scandal lied, as she so often does; for even as a minor canon no one had been more popular among his reverend brethren in the close, than Mr. Harding; and Scandal, before she had reprobated Mr. Harding for being made precentor by his friend the bishop, had loudly blamed the bishop for having so long omitted to do something for his friend Mr. Harding.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Korean: ??? (seukaendeul)

Translations

Verb

scandal (third-person singular simple present scandals, present participle scandalling or scandaling, simple past and past participle scandalled or scandaled)

1. (obsolete) To treat opprobriously; to defame; to slander.
2. (obsolete) To scandalize; to offend.
   • 1855, Robert Potts, Liber Cantabrigiensis

     A propensity to scandal may partly proceed from an inability to distinguish the proper objects of censure

Romanian

Etymology

From French scandale, from Latin scandalum.

Noun

scandal n (plural scandaluri)

1. scandal

Declension