Pièce1, n.
n. [Fr. pièce, Pr. peza, pessa, It. pezza, pezzo, Sp. pieza, Pg. peça, L. Lat. pecia, pechia, petia, petium, of Celtic origin; W. pêth, a thing, a part, portion, a little, Armor. pez, pech, Gael. pios, Ir. piosa.]
Sense 1. A fragment or part of any thing separated from the whole, in any manner, by cutting, splitting, breaking, or tearing; a part; a share; a portion.
Sense 2. A portion of any thing conceived of as apart from other portions, but not actually separated from them; as, a piece of excellent information.
Sense 3. Any one thing conceived of as apart from other things of the same kind; an individual article; a single effort; a definite performance; especially, (a.) A literary or artistic composition; as, a piece of poetry or music; a finely painted piece; a piece of statuary. (b.) A musket, gun, or cannon; as, a battery of six pieces; a fowling piece; to discharge a piece. (c.) A coin; as, a sixpenny piece.
Sense 4. (Her.) An ordinary or charge; as, the fesse, the bend, the pale, the bar, the cross, the saltier, the chevron, are called honorable pieces.
Sense 5. An individual person;—often, but not always, used slightingly or in contempt. “If I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him.” Sidney.
Thy mother was a piece of virtue. Shak.
His own spirit is as unsettled a piece as there is in all the world. Coleridge.
Apiece, piece by piece; one by one; singly.—Of a piece, of the same sort, as if taken from the same whole; like;—sometimes followed by with.
The poet must be of a piece with the spectators to gain reputation. Dryden.
—Piece of eight, a piaster. See PIASTER.—To pieces, to ruin. “As a stone that shall to pieces dash.” Milton.
Synonyms—PIECE, DISTANCE. The radical idea is that of something separate or distinct; as, a piece of timber or land, a piece of music or composition, a piece of work, a piece of ordnance. Some, among our common people, use piece for distance in phrases like this: “He went forward a piece,” meaning, over a piece or portion of the road. It is hardly necessary to say that such an expression has no sanction in good usage, and ought to be avoided as a gross vulgarism.