DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 Piece n.
 1. A fragment or part of anything separated from the whole, in any manner, as by cutting, splitting, breaking, or tearing; a part; a portion; as, a piece of sugar; to break in pieces.
    Bring it out piece by piece.   --Ezek. xxiv. 6.
 2. A definite portion or quantity, as of goods or work; as, a piece of broadcloth; a piece of wall paper.
 3. Any one thing conceived of as apart from other things of the same kind; an individual article; a distinct single effort of a series; a definite performance; especially: (a) A literary or artistic composition; as, a piece of poetry, music, or statuary. (b) A musket, gun, or cannon; as, a battery of six pieces; a following piece. (c) A coin; as, a sixpenny piece; -- formerly applied specifically to an English gold coin worth 22 shillings. (d) A fact; an item; as, a piece of news; a piece of knowledge.
 4. An individual; -- applied to a person as being of a certain nature or quality; often, but not always, used slightingly or in contempt. “If I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him.”
    Thy mother was a piece of virtue.   --Shak.
    His own spirit is as unsettled a piece as there is in all the world.   --Coleridge.
 5. Chess One of the superior men, distinguished from a pawn.
 6. A castle; a fortified building. [Obs.]
 Of a piece, of the same sort, as if taken from the same whole; like; -- sometimes followed by with. --Dryden.
 Piece of eight, the Spanish piaster, formerly divided into eight reals.
 To give a piece of one's mind to, to speak plainly, bluntly, or severely to (another). --Thackeray.
 Piece broker, one who buys shreds and remnants of cloth to sell again.
 Piece goods, goods usually sold by pieces or fixed portions, as shirtings, calicoes, sheetings, and the like.