different between piece vs verse

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

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?v?s/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?v??s/
• Rhymes: -??(?)s

Etymology 1

From Middle English vers, from a mixture of Old English fers and Old French vers; both from Latin versus (“a line in writing, and in poetry a verse; (originally) row, furrow”), from vert? (“to turn around”).

Noun

verse (countable and uncountable, plural verses)

1. A poetic form with regular meter and a fixed rhyme scheme.

   Synonym: poetry

2. Poetic form in general.

3. One of several similar units of a song, consisting of several lines, generally rhymed.

   Synonym: stanza

4. A small section of the Jewish or Christian Bible.

   Holonym: chapter

5. (music) A portion of an anthem to be performed by a single voice to each part.

Derived terms

• blank verse
• free verse

Related terms

• versification
• versify

Translations

Verb

verse (third-person singular simple present verses, present participle versing, simple past and past participle versed)

1. (obsolete) To compose verses.
   • c. 1579, Philip Sidney, The Defense of Poesy

     It is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet.

2. (transitive) To tell in verse, or poetry.
3. (transitive, figuratively) to educate about, to teach about.

Etymology 2

Back-formation from versus, misconstrued as a third-person singular verb verses.

Verb

verse (third-person singular simple present verses, present participle versing, simple past and past participle versed)

1. (colloquial, sometimes proscribed) To oppose, to compete against, especially in a video game.

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• reves, serve, sever, veers

Afrikaans

Noun

verse

1. plural of vers

Dutch

Pronunciation

Adjective

verse

1. Inflected form of vers

Anagrams

• vrees

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /v??s/

Adjective

verse (plural verses)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Noun

verse f (plural verses)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Derived terms

• pleuvoir à verse

Verb

verse

1. inflection of verser:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Anagrams

• resve, rêves, rêvés, serve

Hungarian

Etymology

vers +? -e (possessive suffix)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?v?r??]
• Hyphenation: ver?se

Noun

verse

1. third-person singular single-possession possessive of vers

Declension

Latin

Participle

verse

1. vocative masculine singular of versus

Middle English

Noun

verse

1. Alternative form of vers

Portuguese

Verb

verse

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of versar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of versar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of versar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of versar

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?verse]

Verb

verse

1. third-person singular present subjunctive of v?rsa
2. third-person plural present subjunctive of v?rsa

Spanish

Verb

verse (first-person singular present me veo, first-person singular preterite me vi, past participle visto)

1. to meet; to see one another

Conjugation

Related terms

• ver

Verb

verse

1. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of versar.
2. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of versar.
3. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of versar.
4. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of versar.