piecewise

adverb, adjective

piecewise is spelled P-I-E-C-E-W-I-S-E: 9 letters. It appears about once in every 8 million words in written English, the 82,325th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adverb, piecewise means “In terms or by means of pieces; a piece at a time” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in piecewise?

Letters	9: P-I-E-C-E-W-I-S-E
In writing	about once in every 8 million words; the 82,325th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched	none measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is piecewise?

Piecewise appears about once in every 8 million words in written English, the 82,325th most frequent word form in the list.

piecewise0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

What does piecewise mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adverb

1
In terms or by means of pieces; a piece at a time.
Near-synonyms: piecemeal, apiece
2
Throughout separate parts, but not necessarily throughout the whole.

adjective

1
Defined by subfunctions and subdomains
2
Clipping of piecewise linear.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Piecewise in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

Language	Words
Spanish	por piezas (piece at a time), por tramos, por partes, a trozos (mathematics: throughout separate parts but not…)
French	par morceaux (mathematics: throughout separate parts but not…)
Portuguese	por partes, em troços (mathematics: throughout separate parts but not…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does piecewise come from?

From piece + -wise.