pieces

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of piece.

   She cut the cake into eight equal pieces.

   Workers gathered the scattered pieces of metal from the floor.

   Note

   The regular plural, and it carries every sense of the singular with it: fragments of a whole, chessmen of higher value than pawns, small coins, paintings and compositions, articles in the press. Because a piece can be one item of a class, the plural often does the counting for things that resist numbers, as in pieces of furniture or pieces of music. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of piece.

   Every evening she pieces together the torn pages of the diary.

   The detective slowly pieces the scattered clues into a single account.

   Note

   Here the spelling is a verb, used for assembling something real or figurative. It usually takes an object, and its particle steers the meaning: together for assembling, out for enlarging or patching. Two narrower uses belong to their own registers. In graffiti slang, someone who pieces produces work more complex than a tag. In a dated, informal use, someone who pieces on food snacks between meals.

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