apiece

Apiece is an adverb meaning for each one or per person. It is used to express the amount or share assigned to each item or individual, typically following a numeral or a price. Common constructions include tickets or items priced per unit: “Tickets cost twenty dollars apiece,” “Three cookies apiece.” It can also appear with plural nouns in contexts such as earnings or quantities: “They earned five dollars apiece.”

In usage, apiece is widely understood in both American and British English and is common in everyday, journalistic, and commercial writing. In more formal prose, writers may prefer per item, per person, or each instead of apiece. Apiece tends to attach to count nouns and is generally not used with mass or uncountable quantities (for example, you would say “per liter” or “per person” rather than “liters apiece” in most contexts).

Etymology and history trace apiece to the phrase a piece, evolving into a single adverb by the early modern period. It remains a fixed expression in modern English, retaining its sense of equal division or allocation.

See also: per, each, per capita. Examples in everyday language illustrate its core function: to denote equal shares or unit prices for multiple items or people.