Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, being, or affecting only a part; not total; incomplete: The plan calls for partial deployment of missiles. The police have only a partial description of the suspect.
- adj. Favoring one person or side over another or others; biased or prejudiced: a decision that was partial to the plaintiff.
- adj. Having a particular liking or fondness for something or someone: partial to spicy food.
- adj. Mathematics Of or being operations or sequences of operations, such as differentiation and integration, when applied to only one of several variables at a time.
- n. Music See harmonic.
- n. Mathematics A partial derivative.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Affecting a part only; not general or universal; not total.
- In botany, subordinate; secondary: as, a partial umbel, peduncle, or involucre.
- Inclined to favor one party in a cause or one side of a question more than the other; not indifferent; exhibiting favoritism; in a restricted sense, unjust or unfair through favoritism.
- Greatly or unduly inclined to favor a person or thing; having a liking for, or a prejudice in favor of, an object: when used in the predicate, with to before the object.
- 3 and Prejudiced, prepossessed, warped, unfair, one-sided.
- n. Same as partial tone.
Wiktionary
- adj. Existing as a part or portion; incomplete.
- adj. computer science Describing a property that holds only when an algorithm terminates.
- adj. Biased in favor of a person, side, or point of view, especially when dealing with a competition or dispute.
- n. mathematics A partial derivative: a derivative with respect to one independent variable of a function in multiple variables.
- n. music An overtone or harmonic.
- n. dentistry dentures that replace only some of the natural teeth
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of, pertaining to, or affecting, a part only; not general or universal; not total or entire.
- adj. Inclined to favor one party in a cause, or one side of a question, more then the other; biased; not indifferent.
- adj. Having a predilection for; inclined to favor unreasonably; foolishly fond.
- adj. (Bot.) Pertaining to a subordinate portion
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (followed by `of' or `to') having a strong preference or liking for
- n. the derivative of a function of two or more variables with respect to a single variable while the other variables are considered to be constant
- adj. showing favoritism
- adj. being or affecting only a part; not total
- n. a harmonic with a frequency that is a multiple of the fundamental frequency
Etymologies
- From Middle English parcial ("biased or particular"), from Late Latin partialis ("of or pertaining to a part"), from Latin pars ("part"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English parcial, from Old French, from Late Latin partiālis, from Latin pars, part-, part; see part. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Abortion proponents hate the term partial-birth abortion because it accurately and understandably describes that which they would rather euphemize as a form of "choice" or obscure with technical terminology.”
“On this account, perhaps, the term partial monopoly might be fairly applicable.”
An inquiry into the nature and progress of rent, by Thomas Malthus
“[443] We could use the term partial defeater 'for defeaters that don't require withholding B but do require holding it less firmly.”
“The term partial insanity comprises chiefly those varieties known as impulsive, emotional, and moral.”
“Note: The term partial is basically the same as harmonic, but they are counted in a slightly different way.”
“Many lenders are reporting loan modifications as what they call partial payment plans, which is considered negative by the FICO score.”
“Once these philosophers have this distinction in hand, they admit that we need rule-consequentialism's rules for our decision procedure (so they accept what we dubbed partial rule-consequentialism).”
“This is where they have issued what they call a partial activation, not the full crew but about a dozen or so agencies, from fire to some of the other emergency police agencies in the region, in the state.”
“Today, attorneys for and against the government's ban on what it calls partial birth abortion began arguing their cases in three different states.”
“On Thursday, the Kenyan government signaled what it called a partial triumph over the militants.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘partial’.
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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POL - scandalous (single words only)
cadre, bribery, bashing, backhander, clash, crony, coercion, coterie, chicanery, baksheesh, acolyte, backlash and 256 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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EU Buzz - ALL words and expressions
A combined list of
1. EU Buzz - single words
2. EU Buzz - collocations
3. EU Buzz - the 100 most active
collocation constituentsabsorption capacity, absorption rate, acceding country, accession candidate, accession countries, accession country, accession criteria, accession cycle, accession negotia..., accession partner..., accession priorities, accession treaty and 2650 more...
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SCIE - mathematics
The most frequent words in the titles of mathematical books and journals (www.sciencedirect.com)
surface, administration, project, motion, machine, medical, vision, solid, shape, scheme, income, proceed and 205 more...
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POL - scandalous (words and collocati...
Words and collocations associated with political scandal
blow the whistle, boo, cronyism and rigging, democratic deficit, denigrate, dirty linen, fiasco, finger pointing a..., graft, hidden account, hush money, illicit financing... and 578 more...
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It's an art
applecart, arterial, arthology, artesian, arthropod, arthrostraca, artifex, artificial, articulate, articling, artichoke, blue darter and 51 more...
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Twitter faves
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
niglets, aw, flakey, shiznit, thatch, sexy, bummers, hotty, eargasms, ratchetry, weird, fab and 457 more... -
the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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jagosaurus's favorites
Words I like mostly because of the way they sound and feel.
ticonderoga, petulance, snark, estimable, chickahominy, feline, gezellig, gneiss, shit, willy-nilly, shelter, coda and 366 more...
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Transhumanity
Cribbed from Transhumanist Terminology at aleph.se, which has definitions, and is itself based on the Lextropicon.
adhocracy, aeonomics, a-life, agoric system, ai, ai-complete, aleph, algernon, amortalist, arachniography, arch-anarchy, arcology and 333 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
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Jacqueline's Words
glittery, horny, amazing, wanderlust, forlorn, lustily, nonchalant, cool, passive, submissive, roundabout, carousel and 558 more...
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nuwerdna's Words
smegma, defenestration, nubile, zeitgeist, stochastic, ergodic, stability, maudlin, recursion, aversion, agent, set and 239 more...
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oneasterism's words
Words that I like, that I don't use often enough, that are new to me, that friends and family have taught me, and so on.
lugubrious, reticent, eschelon, missive, penchant, copious, conspicuous, tranquil, redolent, asinine, inane, dilatory and 625 more...
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Hilary's List
Just a list of words I like
wellspring, mystery, wonderment, intrinsic, artisan, enchantment, magic, transience, incomplete, impermanent, imperfect, resonance and 163 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for partial.
jmjarmstrong JM is planning on being totally partial today Aug 12, 2011