diced up

Meanings

1. 1adjectivebefore a nouninformal

   Cut into small cubes, especially food prepared this way before cooking or serving.

   Grammar: Used mainly before a noun, as in 'diced-up carrots'; it can also follow a linking verb: 'The carrots are diced up.'

   Patterns

   • diced-up vegetables
   • diced-up chicken
   • be diced up

   She added diced-up onions to the hot pan.

   The recipe calls for two cups of diced-up tomatoes.

   Leftover roast chicken, diced up, makes a quick filling for sandwiches.

2. 2verbtransitiveinformal

   Cut something into small cubes; the past participle of 'dice up'.

   Grammar: This is the -ed form of the phrasal verb 'dice up', which takes an object: dice up the carrots.

   Patterns

   • dice up something
   • dice something up

   He diced up the potatoes before boiling them.

   Have you diced up all the vegetables yet?

   The chef diced the meat up in seconds.

Common combinations

finely diced up

Finely diced-up celery gives the salad a nice crunch.

diced up small

Cut the fruit diced up small so children can eat it easily.

diced up onions

Fry the diced-up onions until they turn golden.

diced up chicken

Stir the diced-up chicken into the sauce.

roughly diced up

The potatoes were roughly diced up and thrown into the soup.

Synonyms and how they differ

chopped

Chopped means cut into pieces that are not necessarily neat cubes, so it is less precise than diced up.

cubed

Cubed is very close in meaning but is used more for larger, more regular pieces than diced up.

minced

Minced means cut into extremely tiny pieces, much smaller than diced up.

Word family

dice verb

To cut food into small cubes.

dice noun

Small cubes of food, or the gaming cubes with numbered sides.

dicer noun

A tool or machine used for cutting food into cubes.

Commonly confused: diced up or diced? diced up or spiced up?

Practice

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