spice
/spaɪs/
spice noun: aromatic or pungent plant matter (usually dried) used to season or flavor food. Also the plural of spouse.
Noun
spice (countable and uncountable, plural spices)
- Aromatic or pungent plant matter (usually dried) used to season or flavor food.
- Vanilla itself was transplanted from Madagascar, the main source of the spice, to Polynesia a century ago.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 242
- The quality of being spicy.
- What spice level do you want for your pad thai? I recommend mild.
- Synonyms:
- spiciness
- Appeal, interest; an attribute that makes something appealing, interesting, or engaging.
- variety is the spice of life
- Honor, a^([sic]) 18-year-old high school student who thinks she has it more together than her fellow students and who looks to both Leslie and Bernie to provide friendship and spice in her life.1979 April 28, Allen Young, “The Joy of Gay Lit”, in Gay Community News: The Gay Weekly, volume 6, number 39, Boston, Mass., →ISSN, page 13, column 3
- A psychoactive neocannabinoid.
- Sweets, candy.
- Let's go daan to t'spice shop an see what they've i stock
- Species; kind.
- A characteristic touch or taste; smack; flavour.
- "I'm not going to promise anything after the perfectly fetid way you're running off," she retorted. "Still, it's pretty obvious that I shall stay here and do what I can for poor Geoffrey in the circumstances." It occurred to the hearer […] that there was a spice of "It is my duty and I will" in...1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London
- An aromatic odor.
- Erotic or pornographic material, usually in written form; smut.
- An additional input parameter used as a secondary, non-secret key in the Hasty Pudding cipher.
Verb
spice (third-person singular simple present spices, present participle spicing, simple past and past participle spiced)
- To add spice or spices to; season.
- Madame de Pompadour was fond of chocolates spiced with vanilla and amber.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 242
- To spice up.
- City Men is pretty much the same kind of sentimental comedy spiced with wisecracks as The Women, a disappointingly familiar genre.1985 February 2, Nicholas Deutsch, “City Men (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 28, page 19
Proper noun (1) capitalized: SPICE
SPICE
- Acronym of Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis, a general-purpose, open-source analog electronic circuit simulator.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Spice
Spice (plural Spices)
- A surname.
Also used as
spice is also the plural of spouse.
spice meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Assamese
spice in Hindi
- plant matter used to season or flavour food
- मसाला masālā
spice in Urdu
- plant matter used to season or flavour food
- مَصالِحَہ masāliha, مَصالْحَہ masālha
spice in Bengali
- plant matter used to season or flavour food
- মসলা mosla
spice in Assamese
- plant matter used to season or flavour food
- মচলা mosola
More languagesFewer languages
- spice in Tagalog
- pampalasa, rekado, espesya
- spice in Arabic
- بَهَار bahār, تَوَابِل tawābil
- spice in Malay
- rempah
- spice in Indonesian
- bumbu
- spice in Thai
- เครื่องเทศ krʉ̂ʉang-têet
- spice in Vietnamese
- gia vị, hương liệu
- spice in Myanmar
- အမွှေးအကြိုင် a.hmwe:a.kruing
Examples of spice in a sentence
- I add zest to the meat by rubbing it with a spice mixture before grilling.
- The soup was distastefully crammed with every spice from the spice cabinet.
- You've got to cook out the spices to get rid of the bitterness.
Synonyms of spice
Forms of spice
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | spices |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | spices |
| present participle | spicing |
| past participle | spiced |
| past | spiced |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Spices |
Origin of 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.
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).
Words formed from spice
- allspice
- bespice
- golden spice
- hunger is the best spice
- king of spices
- mixed spice
- Montreal steak spice
- pondspice
- pudding spice
- pumpkin pie spice
- pumpkin-pie spice
- pumpkin spice
- pumpkin-spice latte
- pumpkin spice latte
- queen of spices
- spice bag
- spiceberry
- spicebox
- spice brown
- spicebush
- spice drop
- spice fiend
- spice finch
- spiceful
- spicehead
- spicehouse
- spiceland
- spiceless
- spicelike
- spicenut
- spice rack
- spicery
- spicewise
- spicewood
- spiciness
- spicy
- sugar and spice
- sugar and spice and everything nice
- table spice
- overspice
- spice up
Phrases with spice
Words that rhyme with spice
Questions about spice
- What does spice mean?
- Spice means aromatic or pungent plant matter (usually dried) used to season or flavor food.
- What is spice in Hindi?
- Spice in Hindi is मसाला (masālā). See Spice meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is spice?
- Spice can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce spice?
- Spice is pronounced /spaɪs/.
- What is the plural of spice?
- The plural of spice is spices.
Words near spice in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spice (page history and authors); SPICE (page history and authors); Spice (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-spice.ogg.
Cite this entry: “spice.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spice. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.