Particle Meaning
/ˈpɑːtɪkl̩/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.
nounAny of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom; an elementary particle or subatomic particle.
Sentence Examples
He doesn't have a particle of kindness in his heart.
He does not have a particle of honesty in him.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Under the microscope, the scientist observed a tiny ____ of dust floating in the air.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Scientists at the laboratory detected a new subatomic ____ during the high-energy collision experiment.
Word Origin & History
From Middle French particule, and its source, Latin particula (“small part, particle”), diminutive of pars (“part, piece”). Semantically displaced native Old English grot whence modern English groat.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Be content with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were desperately and unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows that I can make the admission now without one particle of vanity."
— 1888, Rudyard Kipling, “The Phantom Rickshaw”, in The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales, Allahabad: A.H. Wheeler and Co., page 10:
"Not every exasperated petty bourgeois could have become Hitler, but a particle of Hitler is lodged in every exasperated petty bourgeois."
— 1933 December 1, Leon Trotsky, “Hitler’s National Socialism”, in The Yale Review, volume 23, number 2:
"What, he asked himself, does quantum theory have to say about the familiar properties of particles such as position?"
— 2011, Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw, The Quantum Universe, Allen Lane, published 2011, page 55:
"The physics of elementary particles in the 20th century was distinguished by the observation of particles whose existence had been predicted by theorists sometimes decades earlier."
— 2012 March-April, Jeremy Bernstein, “A Palette of Particles”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 146:
"In English there is no grammatical device to differentiate predicational judgments from nonpredicational descriptions. This distinction does cast a shadow on the grammatical sphere to some extent, but recognition of it must generally be made in semantic terms. It is maintained here that in Japanese, on the other hand, the distinction is grammatically realized through the use of the two particles wa and ga."
— 1965 June 4, Shigeyuki Kuroda, “Generative grammatical studies in the Japanese language”, in DSpace@MIT, retrieved 24 Feb 2014, page 38:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
Under the microscope, the scientist observed a tiny ____ of dust floating in the air.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Scientists at the laboratory detected a new subatomic ____ during the high-energy collision experiment.