Spice

How to spell spice

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce spice

What does spice mean?

1. nounAn aromatic vegetable substance, such as pepper or cinnamon, used to flavour food.
2. verbTo add interest, flavour, or excitement to something.

Spice in a sentence

• noun

  The recipe calls for a pinch of warm spice near the end of cooking.

• verb

  A few jokes can spice up an otherwise dull presentation.

• noun

  She keeps every jar of spice neatly labelled on the kitchen rack.

• verb

  The chef likes to spice the stew with fresh chilli.

Where does spice come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin species, which literally meant 'a kind' or 'a sort', and by extension a type of goods or merchandise. In late Latin and medieval trade, the plural species came to mean valuable wares such as the aromatic substances brought along trade routes from the East. English borrowed it through Old French as 'espice' in the 1200s, when these costly seasonings were prized enough to be used almost as currency. The same Latin root also gave English 'species' in its scientific sense and lurks inside 'special', all sharing the idea of a distinct kind. The simple modern spelling, with its soft 'c' giving an 's' sound before the 'e', is the lasting clue to that classical ancestry.

How the word is built

• spice (from Latin species: kind, sort, goods)