Particle

How to spell particle

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce particle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does particle mean?

1. nounA very small piece or quantity of matter, such as a speck of dust or a unit studied in physics.
2. nounA small function word, such as 'to' or 'up', that does not change its form and carries little independent meaning.

Particle in a sentence

• A single particle of dust settled on the camera lens.

• In the phrase 'look up', the word 'up' acts as a particle rather than a preposition.

• The filter traps every particle of pollen before it reaches the room.

• The grammar lesson explained how each particle attaches to its verb.

Where does particle come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin particula, which was simply the diminutive of pars (genitive partis), meaning 'a part' or 'a portion'. Because particula literally meant 'a little part', the spelling preserves that ancient sense of smallness in its ending. English took the word in during the late fourteenth century, at first for any tiny fragment of matter, and over time scientists narrowed it to the minute pieces of physics, such as dust grains and later subatomic units. The same Latin pars also gives us 'part', 'partial', 'portion', and 'particular', so the family is large and familiar. The trap in spelling is the ending: the word follows the Latin diminutive and is spelled -icle, not the -ical you might expect from words like 'practical'.

How the word is built

• part- (from Latin pars, partis: a part or portion)
• -icle (from Latin -icula, a diminutive suffix meaning 'small')