spice

/spaɪs/

/spaɪs/

Other forms: spices; spiced; spicing

You can spice up your meal with chili powder — or you can spice up your room with a disco ball! Spice is usually a flavoring for food, but you can add spice to other things by jazzing them up.

Spices make your food more interesting and flavorful. Something that increases the excitement in other parts of life can also be called spice, like when the rivalry between two basketball players adds spice to the game. You can spice things up when you're telling a story by adding colorful details.

Definitions of spice

1. noun

   any of a variety of pungent aromatic vegetable substances used for flavoring food
   types:

   five spice powder

   Chinese seasoning made by grinding star anise and fennel and pepper and cloves and cinnamon

   allspice

   ground dried berrylike fruit of a West Indian allspice tree; suggesting combined flavors of cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves

   cinnamon

   spice from the dried aromatic bark of the Ceylon cinnamon tree; used as rolled strips or ground

   clove

   spice from dried unopened flower bud of the clove tree; used whole or ground

   fennel

   fennel seeds are ground and used as a spice or as an ingredient of a spice mixture

   ginger, powdered ginger

   dried ground gingerroot

   mace

   spice made from the dried fleshy covering of the nutmeg seed

   nutmeg

   hard aromatic seed of the nutmeg tree used as spice when grated or ground

   Chinese anise, star anise, star aniseed

   anise-scented star-shaped fruit or seed used in Asian cooking and medicine

   stick cinnamon

   dried rolled strips of cinnamon bark

   type of:

   flavorer, flavoring, flavourer, flavouring, seasoner, seasoning

   something added to food primarily for the savor it imparts
2. noun

   aromatic substances of vegetable origin used as a preservative
   types:

   stacte

   (Old Testament) one of several sweet-smelling spices used in incense

   type of:

   preservative

   a chemical compound that is added to protect against decay or decomposition
3. noun

   the property of being seasoned with spice and so highly flavored
   synonyms: spicery, spiciness

   types:

   bite, pungency, raciness, sharpness

   a strong odor or taste property

   nip, piquance, piquancy, piquantness, tang, tanginess, zest

   a tart spicy quality

   hotness, pepperiness

   a hot spiciness

   type of:

   taste property

   a property appreciated via the sense of taste
4. verb

   add herbs or spices to
   synonyms: spice up, zest

   types:

   ginger

   add ginger to in order to add flavor

   pepper

   add pepper to

   type of:

   flavor, flavour, season

   lend flavor to
5. verb

   make more interesting or flavorful
   synonyms: spice up

   types:

   salt

   add zest or liveliness to

   type of:

   alter, change, modify

   cause to change; make different; cause a transformation