DictionaryAI

dice

DYS/daɪs/

Pluraldice, dices

Verbdices, dicing, diced

6 meanings of dice

Practice

  1. 1
    rolled cubesnoun
    Plural of die: small objects with marked faces, usually cubes, rolled in games to produce random results.

    The dice landed showing a five and a three.

    Players take turns throwing the dice.

    UsageUse are with it: the dice are on the table. For one cube, a die is traditional, though a dice is common too.

  2. 2
    chop smallverbtransitive
    To cut something into small cubes.

    Dice the potatoes into even cubes before roasting them.

    The chef diced the peppers with quick, practiced strokes.

    UsageYou dice food into cubes; chop is rougher and mince is finer.

    Similarcube, chop

    Note

    The kitchen verb also travels into figurative use, for cutting something abstract into ever smaller units. Samanth Subramanian, writing in 2019, says urban lives have "diced our opportunity costs finer and finer," from slabs of hours down to minutes.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

  3. 3
    food bitsnoununcountable
    Food, especially vegetables, that has been cut into small cubes.

    For this salsa, keep the dice small so every bite gets a little of everything.

    A small dice of carrot, celery, and onion is the base of many soups.

    UsageUsually with a size word: a fine dice, medium dice, cut into a small dice.

    Similarcubes

    Note

    It was once countable. A 1782 edition of Tobias Smollett's translation of Don Quixote offers "some dices of Tronchon cheese." Modern recipes drop that plural and treat the cut as a single quantity.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

  4. 4
    gambling gamenoununcountable
    The playing of games of chance using one or more small numbered cubes.

    The sailors gambled at dice below deck during the long voyage.

    She won a small fortune at dice that evening.

    UsagePeople play dice or gamble at dice, and it takes is: dice is a game of chance.

    Note

    Gamblers play at dice, as in Einstein's "He is not playing at dice", and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) can speak of "too much dice."

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • The words “He is not playing at dice” occur in an English translation of Einstein's correspondence. news.westernu.ca
    • Joseph Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness, first published in 1899. en.wikipedia.org
    • Heart of Darkness contains “too much dice”; the speaker is Marlow. gutenberg.org

Less common meanings

  1. 5
    gambleverbintransitive
    To gamble using one or more small numbered cubes.

    Soldiers diced in the barracks to pass the long nights.

    He would dice for hours whenever he had a few coins to spare.

    UsageOften dice for money; the idiom dice with death means take a dangerous risk.

    Similargamble

    Note

    The gambling verb takes no object, and the people you play against come in with with: Tyrion finds Timett "dicing with his Burned Men" in George R.R. Martin's A Clash of Kings (1998). The verb has a long literary life. Falstaff in Shakespeare's The First Part of Henry the Fourth "diced not above seven times a week", and E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros (1922) pairs carding and dicing.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

    • George R. R. Martin wrote A Clash of Kings, first published in 1998. en.wikipedia.org
    • The character's name is Timett. The quoted phrase and narrative context are correct. nolligan.co.uk
    • Falstaff says the quoted words in Shakespeare's The First Part of Henry the Fourth. folger.edu
    • E. R. Eddison wrote The Worm Ouroboros, first published in 1922. en.wikisource.org
    • The Worm Ouroboros pairs carding and dicing. en.wikisource.org
  2. 6
    decorate with squaresverbtransitive
    To decorate a surface with a pattern of squares, diamonds, or cubes.

    The bookbinder diced the calfskin cover in gilt diamonds.

    Some binders still dice the calfskin by hand, pressing a fine diamond pattern into the cover.

    Similarchecker

dice is a form of die

die, noun: A small object, usually a cube, with numbered or marked faces, thrown to produce a random result in games of chance. Full entry

Forms
diedies pluraldice plural
Spelling
die → dice: irregular plural (no -s)

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of dice apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

In Middle English, dys was the plural of dy (compare the noun die). The s sound most likely stayed voiceless because speakers felt the word as a collective word, not a plural, as with pence, and the spelling dice follows from that pronunciation.