apiece
/əˈpis/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.24 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
Following a noun or noun phrase: by, for, or to each one; each by itself.
adv
For an undetermined distance.
Example Sentences
- "Near-synonyms: all, individually, singly; piecemeal, piecewise"
- "These melons cost a dollar apiece."
- "There were ſtondynge ſixe water pottes of ſtone after the maner of the purifyinge of the iewes⸝ contaynynge two or thre fyrkyns a pece."
- "Take nothing for your iourney, neither ſtaues, nor ſcrip, neither bread, neither money, neither haue two coates apeece."
- "[…] Kings at a moderate reckoning Reign but 18 or 20 years a-piece one vvith another: […]"
- "The engines were built in the Doncaster works at what I believe to have been the low cost, even for those days, of £2,500 apiece, […]"
Etymology
Univerbation of a + piece (noun), from Late Middle English a pece. Pece is derived from Anglo-Norman pece, peece, peice, Middle French piece, and Old French pece, pice, piece (“part of a whole”) (modern French pièce); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Late Latin *pettia, *pettium (compare pecia, pecium, petia, petium (“broken piece, fragment; piece of land”)), or from their possible etymon Gaulish *pettyā, from Proto-Celtic *kʷezdis (“piece, portion; quota”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /əˈpis/
- British English: /əˈpiːs/