spice

«spice» in Mova's school dictionary: a dried part of a plant, such as seeds, bark or roots… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a spice, spices; spice — uncountable for excitement); verb (spice, spices, spiced, spicing; spice up)

meaning for a pupil

1) A spice is a dried part of a plant, such as seeds, bark or roots, used to give food a strong flavour: pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cumin. tree →

2) Spice also means excitement or interest that makes something less boring: «variety is the spice of life». tree →

3) To spice food is to add spices to it. tree →

4) To spice something up is to make it more exciting or interesting. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday cooking and stories about markets and trade; in history lessons, spices were traded over long distances and were very valuable. In science, smell and taste. Phrases: herbs and spices, spice rack, mixed spice (UK), spice it up, a hint of spice.

examples

• Cinnamon is my favourite spice. tree →
• Mum keeps her spices in little jars on a rack. tree →
• Add a pinch of spice to the soup. tree →
• The ships carried spices from faraway lands. tree →
• Let's spice up the party with some games. tree →
• Variety is the spice of life. tree →
• Gran made spiced apple cake. tree →
• Some spices, like chilli, make food hot. tree →
• She smells of spice and honey. tree →

note

Countable for kinds of spice (many spices), uncountable for the stuff (a bit of spice). Herbs are usually the leaves (basil, mint); spices are usually seeds, bark or roots. «Spice» is also a slang name for a dangerous drug — keep away from anything called that.

In the corpora

• Keepers sometimes spray perfume or spices in an enclosure, because new smells give cats something to explore, like a new toy.
• Nuts, beans and many spices are seeds or other plant parts that plants pack with food or guard with strong tastes.
• By the 1700s spices became much cheaper in Europe as more were shipped by sea and plants were grown in new places.
• Spices were dear in medieval Europe but not usually worth as much as gold.
• Spices were expensive in medieval Europe but not usually worth their weight in gold, and they were not used to hide rotten meat.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «spice» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.