particle

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
"The discovery of this particle is an example of all the wonderful results pouring out of accelerator laboratories over the past few years."

View all »
Definitions (26)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (10)

  1. noun A very small piece or part; a tiny portion or speck.
  2. noun A very small or the smallest possible amount, trace, or degree: not a particle of doubt.
  3. noun Physics A body whose spatial extent and internal motion and structure, if any, are irrelevant in a specific problem.
7 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (12)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • The main purpose of the Large Hadron Collider is to see this Higgs particle, and we're almost certain it will. —  Garrett Lisi on his theory of everything
  • That is why my ear is always straining to hear the little word particle, TO, following “attend.” It would be so nice to hear, “All luggage and packages must be ‘attended TO’ (to take care, give attention) at all times.” But, alas.
  • Either the particle is a meson—a combination of a matter quark and an antimatter quark ( q q-bar )—or else it is a baryon—a combination of three quarks( q q q ). —  AnalogSF,Mar2004
  • In my understanding an inelastic particle is a particle with internal structure that can take up energy. —  Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en]
  • (The particle is an excitation of the Higgs field.) —  Original Signal - Transmitting Digg
More examples »
 

Tags

particle hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Words tagged particle

Stats

This word has been looked up 120 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

atom ·  substance ·  layer ·  dust ·  fragment ·  material ·  mass ·  gas ·  element ·  radiation ·  grain ·  compound

Used in the same contextWord Family

particle:   particles
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Latin particula, diminutive of pars, part-, part; see part.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from French particule = Spanish particula = Portuguese particula = Italian particola, particella, particula, from Latin particula, double diminutive of pars (part-), a part: see part. Cf. parcel,ult. from the same source.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ˈpɑrtɪkl/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a week.

Recently looked up

surliness · na · notarize · Ettore · botched

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

these grunts every eight hours · haul it off to our darkest dungeon · send for a doctor · forget what witticism you were originally going to insert here because you've just banged your knee on your desk · the rest will come naturally