particle
Pronunciation: /ˈpɑːtɪkl̩/
The English word “particle” has 6 meanings listed here.
noun
- A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.
- Any of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom; an elementary particle or subatomic particle.
- 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).
- A part of speech which cannot be inflected.
- In the Roman Catholic church, a crumb of consecrated bread; also the smaller breads used in the communion of the laity.
- A little bit.
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.
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More English words
- participialization
- participialize
- participially
- participle
- particle accelerator
- particle beam
- particle beamer
- particle board
About this dictionary
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.