spice

See also: Spice and SPICE

English

Pronunciation

  • enPR: spīs, IPA(key): /spaɪs/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -aɪs

Etymology 1

From Old French espice (modern épice), an old borrowing from Late Latin speciēs (“spice(s), good(s), ware(s)”), from Latin speciēs (“kind, sort”). Doublet of species.

Noun

spice (countable and uncountable, plural spices)

  1. (countable, uncountable) Plant matter (usually dried) used to season or flavour food.
  2. (figuratively, uncountable) Appeal, interest; an attribute that makes something appealing, interesting, or engaging.
  3. (uncountable) A synthetic cannabinoid drug.
  4. (uncountable, Yorkshire) Sweets, candy.
  5. (obsolete) Species; kind.
    • Wyclif Bible, 1 Thessalonians v. 22
      Abstain you from all evil spice.
    • Sir T. Elyot
      Justice, although it be but one entire virtue, yet is described in two kinds of spices. The one is named justice distributive, the other is called commutative.
Hypernyms
Hyponyms
  • See also Thesaurus:seasoning
Coordinate terms
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

spice (third-person singular simple present spices, present participle spicing, simple past and past participle spiced)

  1. (transitive) To add spice or spices to.
Translations

Further reading

Etymology 2

Formed by analogy with lice and mice as the plurals of louse and mouse by Robert A. Heinlein in Time Enough for Love.

Noun

spice

  1. (nonce word) plural of spouse

References

  • “spice” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2018.

Anagrams

Latin

Verb

spice

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of spiciō

Lower Sorbian

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈspʲit͡sɛ/, [ˈspʲit͡sə]

Adjective

spice

  1. inflection of spicy:
    1. nominative and accusative singular neuter
    2. nominative and accusative plural

Participle

spice

  1. inflection of spicy:
    1. nominative and accusative singular neuter
    2. nominative and accusative plural
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