Parts

How to spell parts

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce parts

What does parts mean?

1. nounThe separate pieces or components that together make up a whole.
2. verbDivides, separates, or moves two things away from each other.

Parts in a sentence

• noun

  The mechanic ordered replacement parts for the gearbox.

• verb

  She always parts her hair down the middle.

• noun

  The instructions list all the parts included in the box.

• verb

  The crowd parts to let the ambulance through.

Where does parts come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin pars, with its stem part-, meaning a 'piece', 'portion', or 'share' of a larger whole. Latin carried it into Old French as part, and English absorbed it after the Norman Conquest, with written records appearing from around the 1200s. The same Latin root spread widely and underlies a whole family of English relatives, including 'partner', 'particle', 'portion', 'depart', and 'apartment', all of which share the idea of something divided or set aside. The verb sense, meaning to divide or to go separate ways, grew naturally from the noun, since to make 'parts' of a thing is to split it. The spelling is refreshingly direct: the cluster 'p-a-r-t' stays stable across the whole family, and the trailing -s simply marks either the plural noun or the present-tense verb.

How the word is built

• part (a piece or portion)
• -s (plural / third-person singular marker)