use-icon

HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY

To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key.

Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window.

guide to the dictionary

use-icon

THE USAGE PANEL

The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.

The Panelists

open-icon

AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP

The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android.

scroll-icon

THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG

The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more.

100-words-icon

See word lists from the best-selling 100 Words Series!

Find out more!

open-icon

INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES?

Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com

slice (slīs)
Share:
n.
1.
a. A thin broad piece cut from a larger object: ate a slice of cheese; examined a slice of the diseased lung.
b. An often wedge-shaped piece cut from a larger, usually circular object: ordered a slice of pie; shared a slice of pizza.
2. A portion or share: a slice of the profits.
3.
a. A knife with a broad, thin, flexible blade, used for cutting and serving food.
b. A similar implement for spreading printing ink.
4. Sports
a. The course of a ball that curves in the direction of the dominant hand of the player propelling it, as to the right of a right-handed player.
b. A stroke that causes a ball to follow such a course: a golfer with a bad slice.
c. A ball propelled on such a course.
d. A stroke, as in tennis, in which the ball is struck with a downward motion with the open face of the racket in order to impart backspin.
v. sliced, slic·ing, slic·es
v.tr.
1. To cut or divide into slices: slice a loaf of bread.
2. To cut from a larger piece: slice off a piece of salami.
3. To cut through or move through with an action like cutting: "where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire" (Robert Frost).
4. To divide into portions or shares; parcel out: "With mortgage securitisation, a pool of home loans is sliced into tranches bearing different degrees of risk" (David Shirreff).
5. To reduce or remove from a larger amount or entity: sliced 10 percent off the asking price.
6. Sports To hit (a ball) with a slice.
v.intr.
1. To make a cut with a cutting implement: I sliced into the cake.
2. To move like a knife: The destroyer sliced through the water.
3. Sports To hit a ball with a slice.
Idiom:
any way/no matter how you slice it
No matter how you look at it; no matter how it is analyzed.

[Middle English sclice, splinter, from Old French esclice, from esclicier, to splinter, of Germanic origin.]

slicea·ble adj.
slicer n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.