Other forms: advices
Advice is what you tell somebody they should do about a problem. Give advice, take advice, a piece of advice, legal advice.
The single most important fact about the word is that it is uncountable: an advice is wrong, advices is wrong, and the countable unit is a piece of advice. That trips up speakers of almost every other European language. The second is the spelling pair: advice with a c is the noun, advise with an s is the verb, and the two are said differently — ad-VICE and ad-VIZE. Note ask for advice and take somebody's advice, both fixed.
1nounadviceAn opinion about what somebody should do.
“She gave me some very good advice about the interview.”
synonyms: guidance, counsel, recommendation
2nounprofessionalProfessional guidance on a particular matter.
“You should take legal advice before signing.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
advice is guidance offered.
Old French avis came from a Latin phrase, mihi est visum — it seems to me. Advice is literally somebody's it-seems-to-me, which is a rather good description of what advice always is, however confidently it is given.
Proto-Indo-European
*weyd-
Middle English
avys
English, today
advice
From Middle English avys. From Middle English avys, from Old French avis, rebracketed from the phrase ce m'est a vis (“I think”, “it seems to me”) literally “it is to my view”, where vis is from Latin vīsus#Noun (“vision, sight”). The unhistoric -d- was introduced during the 15th century due to influence from advise and ad-, see advance. a doublet of aviso. See vision, and compare avise, advise. Mostly displaced native Old English rǣd (see modern rede).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA