Particular

How to spell particular

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce particular

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does particular mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to one specific person or thing rather than things in general; or being unusually careful and exacting about details.
2. nounA single detail or individual item of information, especially among several.

Particular in a sentence

• adjective

  He had no particular reason for choosing that hotel.

• noun

  The officer recorded every particular of the accident in his report.

• adjective

  She is very particular about how the kitchen is kept.

• noun

  The brochure was accurate in every particular of the itinerary.

Where does particular come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin particularis, meaning 'concerned with a single part', which was built on particula, the diminutive of pars (a part or portion); so the literal idea is a 'little part' singled out from a larger whole. English picked it up in the late 1300s by way of Old French particuler, at first in the sense of relating to one specific thing rather than the general. From that 'one specific item' sense came the later, fussier meaning of someone who is exacting about small details, since such a person attends to every individual point. The same pars root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'part', 'partition', 'parcel' and 'particle', all of which share that notion of a portion broken off the whole. The trickiest part of the spelling is the unstressed middle: the '-ticu-' is easy to slur in speech, and the ending is '-ar', not the more common '-er', a trap that catches many fluent writers.

How the word is built

• part- (from pars: a part, portion)
• -icul- (Latin diminutive: a little)
• -ar (adjective suffix)