particle

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   in nontechnical usage, a tiny piece of anything

   There wasn't a particle of food left after the party.

2. 2
   noun

   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.

3. 3
   noun

   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?

4. 4
   noun

   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).

   In English there is no grammatical device to differentiate predicational judgments from nonpredicational descriptions. This distinction does cast a shadow on the grammatical sphere to some extent, but recognition of it must generally be made in semantic terms. It is maintained here that in Japanese, on the other hand, the distinction is grammatically realized through the use of the two particles wa and ga.

5. 5
   noun

   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.

6. 6
   noun

   A little bit.

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

7. 7
   noun

   a function word that can be used in English to form phrasal verbs

8. 8
   noun

   a body having finite mass and internal structure but negligible dimensions

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.