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particle

noun
/ˈpɑːtɪk(ə)l/UK/ˈpɑɹtɪkəl/US

Etymology

From Middle French particule, and its source, Latin particula (“small part, particle”), diminutive of pars (“part, piece”). Semantically displaced native Old English grot whence modern English groat.

  1. derived from particula — “small part, particle”
  2. derived from particule

Definitions

  1. A very small piece of matter, a fragment

    A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.

    • Be content with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were desperately and unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows that I can make the admission now without one particle of vanity.
    • Not every exasperated petty bourgeois could have become Hitler, but a particle of Hitler is lodged in every exasperated petty bourgeois.

  2. Any of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom

    Any of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom; an elementary particle or subatomic particle.

    • What, he asked himself, does quantum theory have to say about the familiar properties of particles such as position?
    • The physics of elementary particles in the 20th century was distinguished by the observation of particles whose existence had been predicted by theorists sometimes decades earlier.

  3. A part of speech that has no inherent lexical definition but must be associated with…

    A part of speech that has no inherent lexical definition but must be associated with another word to impart meaning, often a grammatical category: for example, the English word to in a full infinitive phrase (to eat) or O in a vocative phrase (O Canada), or as a discourse marker (mmm).

  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. A part of speech which cannot be inflected.

      • 322. The parts of speech which are neither declined nor conjugated, are called by the general name of particles. 323. They are adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
      • The Parts of Speech are the Noun (Substantive and Adjective), the Pronoun, the Verb, and the Particles (Adverb, Preposition, and Conjunction)[.]

    2. In the Roman Catholic church, a crumb of consecrated bread

      In the Roman Catholic church, a crumb of consecrated bread; also the smaller breads used in the communion of the laity.

    3. A little bit.

      • "That doesn't make a particle of difference", replied Charlotte. "Not a particle."

The neighborhood

Derived

adparticle, adverbial particle, alpha particle, angel particle, antiparticle, anti-particle, astroparticle, beta particle, bioparticle, cascade particle, charged particle, charged-particle, composite particle, cosmoparticle, delta particle, Dirac particle, ferroparticle, fundamental particle, gamma particle, geoparticle, God particle, gravitationally interacting massive particle, Higgs particle, Hitler particle, holoparticle, hot particle, immunoparticle, infraparticle, interparticle, intraparticle, J/psi particle, Janus particle, K-particle, lambda particle, lipoviroparticle, macroparticle, Majorana particle, microparticle, monoparticle, multiparticle · +53 more

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at particle. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01particle02phrase03core04machines05machine06mechanically07mechanical08coarse09particles

A definitional loop anchored at particle. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at particle

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA