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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

spice.

Aromatic or pungent plant matter (usually dried) used to season or flavor food.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/spaɪs/

  1. Aromatic or pungent plant matter (usually dried) used to season or flavor food.

    countable · uncountable

  2. The quality of being spicy.

    uncountable
    What spice level do you want for your pad thai? I recommend mild.

  3. Appeal, interest; an attribute that makes something appealing, interesting, or engaging.

    figuratively · uncountable
    variety is the spice of life

  4. A psychoactive neocannabinoid.

    uncountable

  5. Sweets, candy.

    Yorkshire · uncountable
    Let's go daan to t'spice shop an see what they've i stock

  6. Species; kind.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable

  7. A characteristic touch or taste; smack; flavour.

    countable · uncountable

  8. An aromatic odor.

    countable · uncountable

  9. Erotic or pornographic material, usually in written form; smut.

    Internet · uncountable

  10. An additional input parameter used as a secondary, non-secret key in the Hasty Pudding cipher.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *speḱ- Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *spéḱyeti Proto-Italic *spekjō Latin speciō Proto-Italic *-jēs Latin -iēs Late Latin speciēs Old French espicebor. Anglo-Norman specebor. Middle English spice English spice Inherited from Middle English spice, from Old French espice (modern épice), from Late Latin speciēs (“spice, good, ware”), from Latin speciēs (“kind, sort”). Doublet of species.

verb/spaɪs/

  1. To add spice or spices to; season.

    transitive

  2. To spice up.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *speḱ- Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *spéḱyeti Proto-Italic *spekjō Latin speciō Proto-Italic *-jēs Latin -iēs Late Latin speciēs Old French espicebor. Anglo-Norman specebor. Middle English spice English spice Inherited from Middle English spice, from Old French espice (modern épice), from Late Latin speciēs (“spice, good, ware”), from Latin speciēs (“kind, sort”). Doublet of species.

noun/spaɪs/

  1. plural of spouse

    form-of · humorous · nonce-word · plural · usually
Where this word comes from

Formed by analogy with lice and mice as the plurals of louse and mouse. First attested use Christopher Morley in “Morley's Magnum” (1935). Made popular by Robert A. Heinlein in Time Enough for Love (1973).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.