PIECE


Meaning of PIECE in English

I. noun

COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a chess piece (= one that you move around the board )

Some of the chess pieces were missing.

a chicken piece (= a chicken breast, leg, thigh or wing )

You will need two chicken pieces per person.

a lump/piece of rock

His leg was trapped under a large lump of rock.

a piece of advice ( also a bit of advice informal )

Let me give you a piece of advice.

a piece of clothing

There were pieces of clothing scattered around the room.

a piece of equipment

When you buy an expensive piece of equipment, you need to insure it.

a piece of evidence

The study produced one interesting piece of evidence.

a piece of glass

He cut his foot on a piece of glass.

a piece of gossip

I’ve got an interesting piece of gossip which might interest you.

a piece of homework

I still have one piece of homework left to do.

a piece of land (= an area of land )

He built a house on a piece of land near the river.

a piece of legislation

The most important piece of legislation was the Prevention of Fraud Act.

a piece of music

It’s a beautiful piece of music.

a piece of news ( also a bit of news British English )

Leo thought about this piece of news carefully.

a piece of paper

Can I have another piece of paper?

a piece of poetry

We had to memorize a piece of poetry.

a piece of propaganda

The claim was a typical piece of Russian propaganda.

a piece of research

A recent piece of research shows why marriages break up.

a piece of sculpture

This is a magnificent piece of sculpture.

a piece of software

This excellent piece of software is compatible with both PCs and Macs.

a piece of wood

He made a bench out of pieces of wood.

a piece of wreckage

The fishermen were left clinging to pieces of wreckage.

a piece of writing

It's a brilliant piece of writing.

a piece/bit of cheese

Would you like a piece of cheese?

a piece/bit of chocolate

Would you like a piece of chocolate?

a piece/bit of information ( also an item of information formal )

He provided me with several useful pieces of information.

a piece/item of data

Every single piece of data is important.

a piece/length/strand of wire

The pieces of wire he’d cut were too short.

a piece/slice of cake

Would you like a slice of cake?

a piece/stroke of luck (= something good that happens by chance )

What a piece of luck that he arrived when he did!

a slice/piece of bread

Can I have another slice of bread?

an item/piece of baggage

How many pieces of baggage do you have?

bite-size pieces

sushi served in convenient bite-size pieces

blow sb/sth to pieces/bits/smithereens

A bomb like that could blow you to bits.

chop sth into pieces/chunks etc

Chop the meat into small cubes.

conversation piece

cut sb a piece/slice of sth

Shall I cut you a slice of cake?

cut sth into pieces/slices/chunks etc

Next cut the carrots into thin slices.

establish/piece together the facts (= find out what actually happened in a situation )

The police are still piecing together the facts.

in two/halves/pieces etc

I tore the letter in two and threw the pieces in the fire.

museum piece

Some of the weapons used by the rebels are museum pieces.

party piece

period piece

a house furnished with period pieces

piece of elastic

a piece of elastic

piece of furniture

I can’t think of a single piece of furniture in my house that I bought new.

piece of machinery

a piece of machinery

piece of string

I need a piece of string to tie this package.

piece of the jigsaw

As he explained, another piece of the jigsaw fell into place.

piece of toast

I had a piece of toast for breakfast.

piece/pile/load etc of shit

set piece

The trial scene is a classic set piece.

shot to pieces

My nerves were shot to pieces after my driving test.

slice/piece of pie

Would you like another piece of apple pie?

smashed to pieces

Several cups fell to the floor and smashed to pieces .

tear sth to pieces/shreds

The dogs tore the meat to pieces.

thrilled to bits/pieces (= very thrilled )

tiny pieces

tiny pieces of paper

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ ADJECTIVE

important

Situation: A is a teacher who told the class yesterday that an important piece of homework must be done that night.

The marketing department writes the really important pieces .

In this respect a particularly important piece of legislation is the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.

This is not a perfect collection, as too many important pieces of the Bird legacy are missing.

Disgorgers are a minor but very important piece of tackle.

Tires are probably the most important pieces of a car.

Perhaps the most important piece of advice of all is to trust your own instincts.

He offers two important pieces of advice about starting your own business.

large

Don't worry if you can't buy any miniature marshmallows - cut the large ones into pieces with scissors.

When you add vinegar to milk, the small solid pieces clump together and form larger solid pieces.

We all took a large piece of the treasure, and some used it sensibly, and some did not.

Leaving a glowing trail over one thousand kilometers long, it broke into several large pieces as it progressed.

A large piece of whale blubber, bearing the marks of fleshing knives, has been discovered off west Falkland.

I called Socks and gave him a large piece of my mind.

Kendo then took the prey from Fitz, having let him tear out a large piece of the monkey's intestines.

Loomas' larger pieces are deceptively simple.

little

He felt that this little piece of bad luck might affect his whole day.

The little pieces of white paper inside trembled like strips of packing excelsior.

Harry wanted to take the little blonde piece and jive with her.

Cut off a little piece and light it, it would heat up anything you wanted.

He managed to contain himself and somehow he got the hundred into the middle without shredding the notes into little pieces .

I played little pieces by Dussek and Clementi, and there was no real discipline involved; it was strictly for fun.

I think they're a good little piece of apparatus.

The little piece of moon, like a chip of eggshell, shone in the sky over us.

long

A long , straight piece of road with no other traffic, and his car hit a tree.

Separate each oil-cured eggplant into 4 long pieces and arrange in star pattern on top of meat.

Obviously you will need a longer and wider piece of wood than the size of the cutlery blank.

I gave the ticket to a man with a cat tied to a long piece of red yarn.

I looked around the ship, and after a few minutes, I found some long pieces of wood.

Helen Appleton Read, the only woman critic to review the show, wrote a long piece in the Brooklyn Eagle.

Elliott: You need a long piece to go right round him.

Much better than a long piece of string!

small

The ground shook and small pieces of earth rained down gently on their heads.

When you add vinegar to milk, the small solid pieces clump together and form larger solid pieces.

Add the oil and deep fry the pork, stirring with a spatula to break it into small pieces .

The victim still had a small piece of metal from the van in his leg, he added.

It was a small piece of shrapnel, but it did a number on the left cheek of my hind end.

Edward looked warningly at Helen and Helen heard herself say that there was a small piece of land.

By collision and gravitational attraction, the larger planetesimals swept up the smaller pieces and became the planets.

tiny

He took the tiny piece of crumpled paper from his top pocket and unfolded it.

Every tiny piece of business is something it wants, as well it should for the sake of its stockholders.

The bomb detonated with a sharp crack, sending tiny but razor-sharp pieces of metal into the backs of the gun crews.

It made our hands and fingers itch, but the tiny pieces of red flesh were delicious.

Others were tiny pieces of polyvinyl-chloride insulated plastic covering, source identified.

The Hawk is a tiny piece of the Machine.

There was quite a good helping of pudding but only a tiny piece of meat.

Jakhaila Miracle Braxton is resting her 3-pound-something body on a tiny piece of sheepskin in an incubator at Mercy Hospital.

■ NOUN

museum

We do not want fossilised museum pieces of countryside but communities with jobs and a living, dynamic and healthy social fabric.

Gluck was armed with an incredibly heavy musket, a single-shot museum piece with an octagonal barrel and a smooth bore.

Those that have are museum pieces .

Now the 1986 tax-revision measure that shut down shelters and closed some loopholes might best be called a museum piece .

But will I been seen as a museum piece by some?

All the planes are museum pieces , normally kept in a museum.

After all, these chairs were built to be used, not to be museum pieces .

He acknowledges that liturgy is not a museum piece but needs to evolve as part of a living tradition.

■ VERB

break

Then they broke the chair into pieces , agreeing to save the folding tables for a Christmas Day blaze.

She broke off a piece of baguette, spread it with butter and jam, stuffed it into her mouth.

Often projects are planned with an overall budget, not broken down into component pieces .

Add the oil and deep fry the pork, stirring with a spatula to break it into small pieces .

With remarkable poise, he quickly put the two broken pieces in one hand and made an attempt to paddle canoe-style.

But it was a home thrust, for the Dennison family was breaking in pieces .

Leaving a glowing trail over one thousand kilometers long, it broke into several large pieces as it progressed.

cut

This was cut from a piece of linen texture board and then backed with some cream silk.

It was in brick form like a pound of butter and you would cut off your own piece .

An arrow, cut into two pieces .

Decide how many pages you want. Cut pieces of paper into eight parts, making enough pages for your book.

Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces , who pierced the dragon?

Our sergeant ran in front of an artillery piece , and the beehive round cut him to pieces.

It wasn't too pretty. Cut to pieces with a whip, and almost decapitated.

Simon ducked his head, cut a piece of ravioli in half with his fork and put it in his mouth.

fall

It should fall out in one piece .

And then he fell into two pieces .

The metal bubbled for an eye-aching moment, and then the door fell in two pieces in the passage beyond.

After he left, I fell to pieces .

He hated playing agony aunt but he couldn't afford to have Hirschfeldt falling to pieces .

Supposing the union fell to pieces , these were the fracture lines along which it would naturally break.

The Soviet Union is falling to pieces; a bloody struggle for those pieces can not be ruled out.

The media seemed to be willing the marriage to fall to pieces .

pick

As proved by history, women are the ones who have to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of war.

He came over to me, picked up the piece of paper before me, and sat back down on the bed.

In her motherly concerned way, she was cosseting him as he tried to pick up the pieces of his life.

In the more stable area people were returning to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Upon release, however, he slowly picked up the pieces of his life and rebuilt his career.

He picked up a piece of paper with some writing on it, could not decipher the writing, and dropped it.

My life fell apart, but he had no trouble picking up the pieces and forged ahead with a new woman.

pull

Something that pulls all the pieces together.

He reached in and pulled out some crumpled pieces of paper.

I had pulled the two heavy pieces and wood across the entrance to the trench.

He pulled out the piece of paper upon which earlier I had signed my name.

She tried to regroup her scattered brain tissue, pulling back pieces of her mind before they were lost for ever.

He reached into his windbreaker and pulled out a piece of paper.

Make a small cut and then try to pull the gall to pieces bit by bit.

Four of them parody the fire brigade, pecking and pulling a piece of bread.

put

Bought dinner and put a twenty-dollar gold piece on the table.

They will put the pieces together with Microsoft Powerpoint.

He put another piece of bread in his mouth and chewed.

A man put a 5p piece into the guitar case and then Alice put a lop piece in.

Because I had to take it apart afterwards and put all the pieces back where they were.

A man put a 5p piece into the guitar case and then Alice put a lop piece in.

With remarkable poise, he quickly put the two broken pieces in one hand and made an attempt to paddle canoe-style.

tear

If Hyde returns while I am writing this confession, he will tear it to pieces to annoy me.

He was thrown from his chariot and his horses tore him to pieces and devoured him.

And it's a myth that foxes are torn to pieces while still alive.

We are lost, for they will surely tear us to pieces with their sharp claws.

Harald tore the passport into pieces .

Kendo then took the prey from Fitz, having let him tear out a large piece of the monkey's intestines.

The remains of the Con federate machinist who was torn to pieces were shoveled into buckets and thrown overboard.

write

Coffin was still pondering on the significance of what he had seen written on the piece of paper from Place's jacket.

He also has written a piece that 100 percussionists will perform at the opening ceremonies for the summer Olympic Games.

The gifted local amateur occasionally writes a piece of enduring worth, and not all commissions involve an expensive financial transaction.

The marketing department writes the really important pieces .

He doubled back to tell Holly she had written a nice piece on Donaldson.

Top staff meetings at the White House and in the various agencies and departments are devoted to getting puff pieces written .

PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a nasty piece of work

Cyril and Wyatt had gone around together with that other boy, that Donald, who was a nasty piece of work.

You'd best steer clear of him, Manderley, he's a nasty piece of work.

a piece/slice of the action

A police station, so help me, is a piece of the action .

His successors never again ran the town, as he did, but they always had a piece of the action .

If you want a slice of the action tickets may still be available on.

If you want to get a slice of the action book early - no kidding.

Nation shall speak peace unto nation, and I shall grab a piece of the action .

Or did evil Uncle Humbert destroy it, because under the law he would then get a piece of the action ?

So how do you get a slice of the action ?

Will foreign firms get a piece of the action ?

be a piece of cake

Creating graphs is a piece of cake on the computer.

Getting tickets to the game will be a piece of cake .

But there is no use pretending the Saturn-Pluto effect will be a piece of cake .

My bone marrow was harvested a couple of weeks ago and the whole thing was a piece of cake .

Normally, walking along tarmac is a piece of cake after the rocky excursion along a ridge.

Should be a piece of cake .

That was a piece of cake compared to finding a square mile without an ad.

The one he was allocated, Parky, a homely, Hoomey-sized bay, was a piece of cake compared with Bones.

be falling to pieces/bits

The walls were all dirty and the furniture was falling to pieces.

But most of the material was falling to pieces.

The Soviet Union is falling to pieces; a bloody struggle for those pieces can not be ruled out.

There's a difference between consciously colouring a passage and not being able to control a voice that is falling to bits.

They would blaze into prominence just as the foreground planting was falling to pieces.

bits and pieces

Do any of these bits and bobs belong to you?

making a mosaic out of bits and pieces of tiles

There are all sorts of bits and pieces in this box.

For the next two decades he made a sort of living finding bits and pieces of editing and translation work.

Having chosen the size of guttering, draw up a list of the various bits and pieces you need.

He circled the house, looking in, and saw nothing but the bits and pieces of ordinary living.

My eyes adjusted, and things became edges, corners, bits and pieces of what they were.

Not a single one had listened to it or even heard bits and pieces on the news.

Storing the furniture and the bits and pieces we didn't need immediately was a bit more difficult.

The bits of information range from play dates with friends to the sometimes frightening bits and pieces of domestic violence.

Why teach in bits and pieces a subject which is a whole?

fall to pieces/bits

After he left, I fell to pieces.

As a result, now that the autumn rains were here, it was already showing signs of falling to pieces.

Being a super-duper well-'ard off-road jobbie, your machine can take a fair amount of punishment before falling to bits.

He hated playing agony aunt but he couldn't afford to have Hirschfeldt falling to pieces.

Supposing the union fell to pieces, these were the fracture lines along which it would naturally break.

The media seemed to be willing the marriage to fall to pieces.

The Soviet Union is falling to pieces; a bloody struggle for those pieces can not be ruled out.

There's a difference between consciously colouring a passage and not being able to control a voice that is falling to bits.

how long is a piece of string?

pick sth to pieces

pick up the pieces (of sth)

The town is beginning to pick up the pieces after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

As proved by history, women are the ones who have to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of war.

I picked up the pieces myself.

In her motherly concerned way, she was cosseting him as he tried to pick up the pieces of his life.

In the more stable area people were returning to pick up the pieces of their lives.

It has already made behind-the-scenes preparations to share the job of picking up the pieces.

Then the red mists cleared and she sank to her knees, picking up the pieces, moaning softly.

This hopefully will cause them a fixture congestion around April/May with us hopefully been able to pick up the pieces.

Whimper like a whipped puppy, Jay, have a drink and pick up the pieces.

piece of the puzzle

All the pieces of the puzzle were in place: it was time for a little conference.

But what about the piece of the puzzle we have so far omitted?

Fortunately, the next step in the research process supplied the missing piece of the puzzle .

How television has changed is one piece of the puzzle .

It's another piece of the puzzle .

So he created a temporary scaffolding to get one piece of the puzzle going.

Take me out of there, and you're taking away a big piece of the puzzle .

The final pieces of the puzzle had now been slotted into place.

say your piece

He knew that he was clever and always wanted to say his piece in meetings.

I was wondering what would happen when Dolly came out on to the stage and said his piece.

Now I have come forward and said my piece.

She'd come this far to say her piece and say it she would, come hell or high water.

Sutton was allowed to say his piece.

The horse-trading that lies ahead will end only when the three key players have said their piece.

The rules state that you let a guy say his piece and you consider what he said.

We each said our piece, each absolutely predictable.

slice/share/piece of the pie

Smaller capitalist countries are maneuvering to gain a bigger share of the pie .

That meant nearly one in five students was moderately to severely work-inhibited-a considerable slice of the pie .

Virtually every academic institution, it seemed, wanted a piece of the pie .

take sth to bits/pieces

After all these years, I'd taken something to bits and successfully put it all back together again.

Carter shrugged and fetching a, paraffin stove from inside a caravan began to take it to pieces.

He learnt how to take a car to pieces.

Most reputable dealers will take a computer to pieces for you.

Operators decided to clean down equipment regularly, not just superficially, but by taking it to pieces.

Unfortunately appearances has been misleading and heavy filling was found as they started to take it to bits.

tear sb/sth to shreds/pieces

In the end the prosecutor's case was torn to shreds by Russell's lawyer.

Male Siamese fighting fish will tear each other's fins to shreds.

A shell had exploded in the body of one of them, tearing it to pieces; others were torn and wounded.

And having got under them, he can't half tear them to pieces.

He was thrown from his chariot and his horses tore him to pieces and devoured him.

If Hyde returns while I am writing this confession, he will tear it to pieces to annoy me.

They snarled at them as if they were criminals and took their papers as if they'd like to tear them to shreds.

They will tear you to pieces.

We are lost, for they will surely tear us to pieces with their sharp claws.

Within two years, other researchers had torn it to shreds.

the villain of the piece

But to do so in this way was to make her appear the villain of the piece.

But who is really the villain of the piece?

Charles the Bald remained the villain of the piece.

Nor do I regard the villains of the piece as the fighters themselves.

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a piece of paper

a beautifully made piece of furniture

a pack of chicken pieces

a simple boat made from a few pieces of wood

a truly impressive piece of Greek sculpture

Another typical piece of Owen's work is the poem, 'The Sentry'.

One of the pieces in Greene's sculpture collection is valued at $12,000.

Our satellite dish has a piece broken off of it.

Some of the jigsaw pieces are missing.

The books were eagerly borrowed and well used, and they finally fell to pieces.

The collection includes pieces in both oils and watercolours, with a range of still life paintings.

The concert began with three short pieces by the Brazilian composer Villa-Lobos.

The equipment had to be taken apart and transported in pieces.

The old wreck had been smashed to pieces on the island's rocks.

The Times did a nice piece on the illegal gambling.

The vase lay in pieces on the floor.

There were pieces of broken glass all over the road.

Tim cut the pie into eight pieces.

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

And indeed it was something very different - the bones of a human skeleton, a few pieces of clothing still on it.

But finally Helen had crumpled her last piece of newspaper.

Crude as Farley plays it, his endearing-blowfish persona is quite a piece of work.

Harry wanted to take the little blonde piece and jive with her.

If you want a piece , indicate by saying yes.

Taking a page from the Netscape playbook, Microsoft is giving away key pieces of Internet software.

The position of the piece of gravel would have made it virtually impossible for the fish to dislodge it.

When a piece of quicklime was held in the tip of the flame it became white hot and glowed brilliantly.

II. verb

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ ADVERB

together

He was like a man piecing together a long silent dream.

The manager develops an understanding of his milieu by piecing together all the scraps of data he can find.

Robert Foley is an anthropologist at Cambridge University who has tried to piece together the history of our social system.

And that's 4 weeks cutting, shaping and piecing together in the workshop using techniques, both old fashioned and up to date.

Equally questionable esthetically is the dashboard, which has a look of being pieced together from assorted parts.

By piecing together the jigsaw fragments, I was able to recreate the chapter.

Officials are still trying to piece together what happened before the fatal crash Sunday.

■ NOUN

information

Some of it is valuable in itself, and some becomes valuable when it is pieced together with other information .

■ VERB

try

They're still trying to piece together her last movements.

Robert Foley is an anthropologist at Cambridge University who has tried to piece together the history of our social system.

He finished up trying to piece together what happened.

Chief Superintendent Louis Munn said police were still trying to piece together exactly what happened and establish a motive for the attack.

Unable to locate her son, Mxolisi, Mandisa tries to piece together what has happened.

Officials are still trying to piece together what happened before the fatal crash Sunday.

Accident investigators have been at the scene this morning trying to piece together what happened.

Urich has always been a likable actor, and he is sympathetic as a man trying to piece his life together.

PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a nasty piece of work

Cyril and Wyatt had gone around together with that other boy, that Donald, who was a nasty piece of work.

You'd best steer clear of him, Manderley, he's a nasty piece of work.

a piece/slice of the action

A police station, so help me, is a piece of the action .

His successors never again ran the town, as he did, but they always had a piece of the action .

If you want a slice of the action tickets may still be available on.

If you want to get a slice of the action book early - no kidding.

Nation shall speak peace unto nation, and I shall grab a piece of the action .

Or did evil Uncle Humbert destroy it, because under the law he would then get a piece of the action ?

So how do you get a slice of the action ?

Will foreign firms get a piece of the action ?

be a piece of cake

Creating graphs is a piece of cake on the computer.

Getting tickets to the game will be a piece of cake .

But there is no use pretending the Saturn-Pluto effect will be a piece of cake .

My bone marrow was harvested a couple of weeks ago and the whole thing was a piece of cake .

Normally, walking along tarmac is a piece of cake after the rocky excursion along a ridge.

Should be a piece of cake .

That was a piece of cake compared to finding a square mile without an ad.

The one he was allocated, Parky, a homely, Hoomey-sized bay, was a piece of cake compared with Bones.

bits and pieces

Do any of these bits and bobs belong to you?

making a mosaic out of bits and pieces of tiles

There are all sorts of bits and pieces in this box.

For the next two decades he made a sort of living finding bits and pieces of editing and translation work.

Having chosen the size of guttering, draw up a list of the various bits and pieces you need.

He circled the house, looking in, and saw nothing but the bits and pieces of ordinary living.

My eyes adjusted, and things became edges, corners, bits and pieces of what they were.

Not a single one had listened to it or even heard bits and pieces on the news.

Storing the furniture and the bits and pieces we didn't need immediately was a bit more difficult.

The bits of information range from play dates with friends to the sometimes frightening bits and pieces of domestic violence.

Why teach in bits and pieces a subject which is a whole?

how long is a piece of string?

piece of the puzzle

All the pieces of the puzzle were in place: it was time for a little conference.

But what about the piece of the puzzle we have so far omitted?

Fortunately, the next step in the research process supplied the missing piece of the puzzle .

How television has changed is one piece of the puzzle .

It's another piece of the puzzle .

So he created a temporary scaffolding to get one piece of the puzzle going.

Take me out of there, and you're taking away a big piece of the puzzle .

The final pieces of the puzzle had now been slotted into place.

slice/share/piece of the pie

Smaller capitalist countries are maneuvering to gain a bigger share of the pie .

That meant nearly one in five students was moderately to severely work-inhibited-a considerable slice of the pie .

Virtually every academic institution, it seemed, wanted a piece of the pie .

the villain of the piece

But to do so in this way was to make her appear the villain of the piece.

But who is really the villain of the piece?

Charles the Bald remained the villain of the piece.

Nor do I regard the villains of the piece as the fighters themselves.

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

Accident investigators have been at the scene this morning trying to piece together what happened.

He finished up trying to piece together what happened.

He will not piece or parse.

It took days, but finally they thought they had it pretty well pieced together.

Organisations such as Gamblers Anonymous concern themselves with piecing together the casualties of addiction.

Twenty-five years after Fernando's death, it was possible to piece together his skeleton in its entirety.

Longman DOCE5 Extras English vocabulary.      Дополнительный английский словарь Longman DOCE5.