particle

[pahr-ti-kuhl]

noun

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.

particle

/ 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

particle

1. A very small piece of solid matter.

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

3. Also called corpuscle

Other Word Forms

• particled adjective
• interparticle adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of particle¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of particle¹

C14: from Latin particula a small part, from pars _part

Example Sentences

Su has described herself as an “engineer’s engineer” who is fascinated by device physics, a discipline that studies how machines can interact with tiny particles like electrons and protons.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

These winds stir up dust into swirling columns called dust devils—rotating plumes of air and fine particles that sweep across the Martian surface.

Read more on Science Daily

People with hepatitis B have 100 million to 10 billion infectious particles per milliliter of blood, says Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The particle accelerator towered over this Pittsburgh suburb built to house Westinghouse workers, and was a symbol of innovation for the company and region.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Using the energy from this rotation, M87* powers a particle jet expelled at nearly the speed of light, stretching across an immense 5,000 light-years.

Read more on Science Daily

Related Words

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