different between piece vs stretch

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 English strecchen, from Old English stre??an (“to stretch, hold out, extend, spread out, prostrate”), from Proto-West Germanic *strakkjan (“to stretch, make taut or tight”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)treg-, *streg-, *treg- (“stiff, rigid”). Cognate with West Frisian strekke, Dutch strekken (“to stretch, straighten”), German strecken (“to stretch, straighten, elongate”), Danish strække (“to stretch”), Swedish sträcka (“to stretch”), Dutch strak (“taut, tight”), Albanian shtriqem (“to stretch”). More at stark.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st??t?/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Verb

stretch (third-person singular simple present stretches, present participle stretching, simple past and past participle stretched or (obsolete) straught or (obsolete) straight)

1. (transitive) To lengthen by pulling.

2. (intransitive) To lengthen when pulled.
   • 1660, Robert Boyle, New Experiments Physico-Mechanical: Touching the Spring of the Air and their Effects

     The inner membrane […] because it would stretch and yield, remained unbroken.

3. (transitive) To pull tight.

4. (figuratively, transitive) To get more use than expected from a limited resource.

5. (figuratively, transitive) To make inaccurate by exaggeration.

6. (intransitive) To extend physically, especially from limit point to limit point.

7. (intransitive, transitive) To extend one’s limbs or another part of the body in order to improve the elasticity of one's muscles

8. (intransitive) To extend to a limit point

9. (transitive) To increase.
10. (obsolete, colloquial) To stretch the truth; to exaggerate.

11. (nautical) To sail by the wind under press of canvas.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Ham. Nav. Encyc to this entry?)

12. (slang, transitive, archaic) To execute by hanging.
13. To make great demands on the capacity or resources of something.

Translations

See also

• pandiculate

Noun

stretch (plural stretches)

1. An act of stretching.

2. The ability to lengthen when pulled.

3. A course of thought which diverts from straightforward logic, or requires extraordinary belief or exaggeration.

4. A segment of a journey or route.

5. A segment or length of material.

6. (Britain, slang, archaic) A walk.
   • Evelyn Underhill, quoted in 2010, Evelyn Underhill, ?Carol Poston, The Making of a Mystic: New and Selected Letters of Evelyn Underhill (page 81)

     In the afternoon I went for a stretch into the country, & about 4 it cleared up pretty well, so I hurried back & we got a cart & drove to Bassano, a little town about 8 miles off, that we wanted to see.

7. (baseball) A quick pitching delivery used when runners are on base where the pitcher slides his leg instead of lifting it.
8. (baseball) A long reach in the direction of the ball with a foot remaining on the base by a first baseman in order to catch the ball sooner.
9. (informal) Term of address for a tall person.
10. (horse racing) The homestretch, the final straight section of the track leading to the finish.
11. A length of time.

    • After the harvest there was a stretch of clear dry weather, and the animals toiled harder than ever […]

    1. (Ireland) Extended daylight hours, especially said of the evening in springtime when compared to the shorter winter days.

    2. (sports) The period of the season between the trade deadline and the beginning of the playoffs.
    3. (slang) A jail or prison term.

       Synonym: stint

       1. (slang) A jail or prison term of one year's duration.
    4. A single uninterrupted sitting; a turn.
12. A stretch limousine.

Translations

Derived terms

Descendants

• Esperanto: stre?i

Further reading

• stretch at OneLook Dictionary Search

References

• (a walk): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Anagrams

• strecht