Singular of "dice"

Solution 1:

I have never heard of "dice" being used as a singular instead of die. As a collective noun which could include one, sure:

Go on and roll the dice. How many dice do I roll? Just one.

But as a straight, unambiguous singular?

Roll one dice

or even worse

Roll a dice

sounds off to me. So I went to check published usage to see if I was being overly pedantic.

I ran a Google books search for the phrases "roll one die" and "roll one dice." I got:

• 5,540 results for "roll one die"
• 139 results for "roll one dice"

Browsing through the first page of results, a lot of the hits on "roll one dice" seem to be either self-published books or false positives for phrases like "roll one's dice" or "re-roll one dice roll," neither of which support Oxford's rule.

Running an Ngram...the Ngram viewer had no trouble with "roll one die" but could not find "roll one dice" at all.

Add to this the fact that "die" is commonly used in idioms like "The die is cast"--this doesn't guarantee that it's current and understood (see "short shrift") but it is another piece of evidence on the pile.

Based on this--and my experience--I would respectfully disagree that "roll one die" is archaic or obsolete in modern English. Even if "roll one dice" is gaining ground as an alternate form, "roll one die" is still the preferred singular, at least in formal writing.

Solution 2:

In my experience, "die" is the singular of dice. Dictionary.com has my back on this one.

"One die" sounds better to me than "one dice."

Solution 3:

Both forms are currently widely used. Singular die remains more frequent overall, but singular dice is also reasonably common, even in formal writing, and especially in British English.

A google ngrams graph for throw a die vs. throw a dice shows that die has remained consistently more frequent, but that the difference has been generally shrinking over time. In recent decades, throw a die wins by a factor of about 1.5--2. Comparing roll a die/dice gives a larger difference, a factor of about 7--10.

Restricting to UK usage, however, the story changes. In roll a die/dice, die is still the winner, but by a much smaller margin; and with throw a die/dice, they have been close to equally popular for a while, with dice more common since 1990 but die regaining ground recently.

(I speculate that the reason for the throw/roll difference is that throw is mostly used casually, while roll is preferred by serious gamers.)

Solution 4:

DIE, n. The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say die." At long intervals, however, some one says: "The die is cast," which is not true, for it is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet and domestic economist, Senator Depew:

A cube of cheese no larger than a die
May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.

— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary