Dice

A die (Old French de, from Latin datum "something given or played" http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/die_2?view=uk) is a small polyhedral object (usually a cube) suitable as a gambling device (especially for craps or sic bo).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Traditionally, a die is seldom seen alone, rather than as one of a pair of identical dice that are sized to be comfortably rolled or thrown, together, from a user's hand. (The singular word "die" is therefore rare, and treating "dice" as interchangeably singular or plural is not uncommon.) A traditional die is a cube (often with corners slightly rounded), marked on each of its six faces with a different number of circular patches or pits called pips. All of these pips have the same appearance within a pair (or larger set) of dice, and are sized for ease of recognizing the pattern the pips on one face form. The design as a whole is aimed at each die providing one randomly determined integer, in the range from one to six, with each of those values being equally likely.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

More generally, a variety of analogous devices are often described as dice, but necessarily in a context, or with a word or two preceding "die" or "dice", that avoids the assumption that traditional dice are intended. Such specialized dice may have cubical or other polyhedral shapes, with faces marked with various collections of symbols, and be used to produce other random results than one through six. There are also "loaded" or "crooked" dice (especially otherwise traditional ones), meant to produce skewed or even predictable results, for purposes of deception or amusement.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Old French: Old French is a term sometimes used to refer to the langue d'oïl, the continuum of varieties of Romance language spoken in territories corresponding roughly to the northern half of modern France and parts of Belgium and Switzerland during the period roughly from 1000 to 1300 A.D....

Modern French: REDIRECT French language...

Latin: Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The ...

Dice related Images and Photos (experimental)

Dice	Dice Cup	Dicecapades! Dice Game	Dice Handbag Kits
LCR Dice Game	UNO Dice Game	Cthulhu Dice	Chug Dice Game
Greed Dice Game	Fuzzy Dice Game	Catan Dice Game	Stack Dice Game