particle

American  

[pahr-ti-kuhl] / ˈpɑr tɪ kəl /

noun

particles plural

1. a minute portion, piece, fragment, or amount; a tiny or very small bit.

   a particle of dust; not a particle of supporting evidence.

   Synonyms:

   speck, grain, tittle, jot, iota, whit, mite

2. Physics.

   1. one of the extremely small constituents of matter, as an atom or nucleus.

   2. an elementary particle, quark, or gluon.

   3. a body in which the internal motion is negligible.

3. a clause or article, as of a document.

4. Grammar.

   1. (in some languages) one of the major form classes, or parts of speech, consisting of words that are neither nouns nor verbs, or of all uninflected words, or the like.

   2. such a word.

   3. a small word of functional or relational use, as an article, preposition, or conjunction, whether of a separate form class or not.

5. Roman Catholic Church. a small piece of the Host given to each lay communicant in a Eucharistic service.

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particle British  

/ ˈpɑːtɪkəl /

noun

1. an extremely small piece of matter; speck

2. a very tiny amount; iota

   it doesn't make a particle of difference

3. a function word, esp (in certain languages) a word belonging to an uninflected class having suprasegmental or grammatical function

   the Greek particles ``mēn'' and ``de'' are used to express contrast

   questions in Japanese are indicated by the particle ``ka''

   English ``up'' is sometimes regarded as an adverbial particle

4. a common affix, such as re-, un-, or -ness

5. physics a body with finite mass that can be treated as having negligible size, and internal structure

6. See elementary particle

7. RC Church a small piece broken off from the Host at Mass

8. archaic a section or clause of a document

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particle Scientific  

/ pär′tĭ-kəl /

1. A very small piece of solid matter.

2. An elementary particle, subatomic particle, or atomic nucleus.

3. Also called corpuscle

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• interparticle
  adjective
• particled
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• particles
  plural

Etymology

Origin of particle

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English word from Latin word particula. See part, -i-, -cle ¹

Explanation

A particle is a small piece of anything. Particle can also refer to a subatomic particle with mass and structure, but takes up hardly any space at all. Particles are tiny. If you mean a subatomic particle, that's a body that you can't see because it is so incredibly small, though it does have a miniscule mass and internal structure. These particles are even smaller than atoms. You can also say a crumb or speck of something is a particle. Dust particles are piling up all the time, and vacuuming cleans up lots of particles. Those particles are little bits of things. In both cases, particles are very tiny.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

particle particles

The world wide web was created at CERN, while proton therapy grew from advances in particle accelerators and radiation physics.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 17, 2026

But the tests provide a particle count and compare your results with others who have taken them.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

Scientists use those flashes to determine where the particle traveled and how it interacted with the detector.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 17, 2026

Turns out the smaller the particle, the more toxic, says Wright.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

It felt like an idea, a particle of dust floating around in the air that hadn’t landed yet.

From "The Book of Unknown Americans" by Cristina Henríquez

It is a relatively new therapy – not officially recognised by the NHS across the UK – which uses charged gas particles to help kill bacteria on the skin.

From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026

Fine particles in the smoke, which can vary depending on what is being burned, can penetrate deep into your lungs and even enter your bloodstream causing illness.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

In 1900, German mathematician David Hilbert asked what would become known as Hilbert's Sixth Problem, how the behaviour of a whole can be calculated based on the movement of individual particles.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

It remains exposed to the undisturbed solar wind, allowing faster particles to penetrate farther into the lunar soil.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026

It was the middle of day one of Operation Save Fig, and my stress levels had gone from jittery subatomic particles to earth-quaking macrocosmic proportions.

From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas

Related Words

• fleck
• fragment
• grain
• mite
• molecule
• ray
• speck