dice

UK/daɪs/US/daɪs/

nounA2+2 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,376 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: diced, dicing

A dice is the small cube with dots on its six faces that you throw to get a number. The rattle in the lid of a board game box, the two that skid across a backgammon board, the one that always ends up under the sofa.

In ordinary British speech dice is both the singular and the plural — roll the dice, one dice, six dice — and the old singular die now lives mainly in writing and in the phrase the die is cast. You roll or throw dice; say you play dice and people hear the gambling game. In the kitchen it is a verb: to dice an onion, a carrot, a potato is to cut it into small even cubes, finer than chopping and squarer than slicing. And to dice with death is to take a risk you did not need to take.

Definitions of dice

1noundiceA small cube marked with one to six dots, thrown in games.A2+~84%
“Shake the dice and throw them onto the board.”
- Said"Roll the dice and stop stalling; it's your turn."
- WrittenThe dice rattled across the board and came up with the one number everybody dreaded.
- UsedShake the dice in the cup and throw them onto the cloth, not the floor.
- ContrastDice, not a ball. A ball is thrown to someone; dice are thrown to see what comes up. ball →
- Not thisA single cube is strictly a die, though nearly everyone says one dice. Few will correct you.
Patternroll / throw the dice · a pair of dice · loaded dice · the roll of the dice · no dice
2verbcutTo cut food into small even cubes.B1~16%
“Dice the onion finely before frying it.”
- Said"Can you dice the onions while I get the pan hot?"
- WrittenShe diced the carrots into little squares, every one exactly alike.
- UsedDice the potatoes so they all cook at once.
- ContrastDice, not chop. Chopping makes rough pieces; dicing makes even cubes of one size. chop →
- SimplyCut it very small, all the same. Now it is diced.
Patterndice + noun (onion, carrot, potato) · finely diced · diced tomatoes · dice sth into cubes

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 141 sentences found in the wild and placed 83 of them on a sense (58 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Also accepted in games: die

Remember it

Dice started as the word for more than one die: one die, two dice. Now most people say one dice as well, and to dice food is to cut it into little cubes the size of dice.

hooks ontodie

Phrases it lives in

roll the dice — take a chance on something
dice with death — take a dangerous risk for no good reason
no dice — no chance; the answer is no

Also practised as

verbTo cut food into small even cubes.

Where it comes from

Dice began life as a plural — Middle English dys, the plural of dy. It hardened into a word of its own the way pence did, keeping its hissing s rather than softening to a z, because people heard it as the name of a set rather than as more than one of something. The spelling followed the sound.

Middle English
dees
English, today
dice

From Middle English dees. From Middle English dys, plural of dy. See the etymology of die (etymology 2) for further information. The voiceless was most likely retained because the word felt like a collective term rather than a plural form (compare pence), and the spelling dice is a result of the pronunciation.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Colors, Shapes & Numbers, Games & Toys, Chess & Card Games

Practise this word

dice in the wild

With each roll of the dice, players must choose from numerous options for moving their pieces and anticipate possible counter-moves by the opponent.
Backgammon
Craps is a dice game in which players bet on the outcomes of the roll of a pair of dice.
Craps
Loaded dice are specifically designed or modified to favor some results over others, for cheating or entertainment purposes.
Dice
The game is a development of earlier dice games such as Poker Dice, Yacht and Generala.
Yahtzee
The objective of the game is to score points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations.
Yahtzee

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Definitions of dice

1noundiceA small cube marked with one to six dots, thrown in games.A2+~84%

“Shake the dice and throw them onto the board.”

Said"Roll the dice and stop stalling; it's your turn."
WrittenThe dice rattled across the board and came up with the one number everybody dreaded.
UsedShake the dice in the cup and throw them onto the cloth, not the floor.
ContrastDice, not a ball. A ball is thrown to someone; dice are thrown to see what comes up. ball →
Not thisA single cube is strictly a die, though nearly everyone says one dice. Few will correct you.

Patternroll / throw the dice · a pair of dice · loaded dice · the roll of the dice · no dice

2verbcutTo cut food into small even cubes.B1~16%

“Dice the onion finely before frying it.”

Said"Can you dice the onions while I get the pan hot?"
WrittenShe diced the carrots into little squares, every one exactly alike.
UsedDice the potatoes so they all cook at once.
ContrastDice, not chop. Chopping makes rough pieces; dicing makes even cubes of one size. chop →
SimplyCut it very small, all the same. Now it is diced.

Patterndice + noun (onion, carrot, potato) · finely diced · diced tomatoes · dice sth into cubes

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 141 sentences found in the wild and placed 83 of them on a sense (58 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Also accepted in games: die