particle

plural particles

1. A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.First known use 14th c.

   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

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   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

   Synonyms: bit, chip, chunk, tranche, clip, crumb, crumbling, cutting

2. natural sciencesAny of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom; an elementary particle or subatomic particle.First known use 19th c.

   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

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   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

3. grammarA part of speech that has no inherent lexical definition but must be associated with another word to impart meaning, often a grammatical category: for example, the English word to in a full infinitive phrase (to eat) or O in a vocative phrase (O Canada), or as a discourse marker (mmm).

   As for syntax and morphology, the Belter Creole can be categorized as an analytic or isolating language as it uses a high quantity of particles and does not show cases of morphological inflection. […] An interrogative particle ke is placed at the end of a question.

   2021 October 5, Gessica Puccini, “Lang Belta: the Belter language from SYFY/Amazon’s The Expanse”, in Lingoblog

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   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

   Traditional grammar typically recognises a number of further categories: for example, in his Reference Book of Terms in Traditional Grammar for Language Students, Simpson (1982) posits two additional word-level categories which he refers to as Particle, and Conjunction. Particles include the italicised words {...} / (a) He put his hat on / (b) If you pull too hard, the handle will come off / (c) He was leaning too far over the side, and fell out / (d) He went up to see the manager

   1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, page 133

   Synonyms: p-word

4. human sciencesA part of speech which cannot be inflected.

   The Parts of Speech are the Noun (Substantive and Adjective), the Pronoun, the Verb, and the Particles (Adverb, Preposition, and Conjunction)[.]

   1894 (2008), B. L. Gildersleeve & G. Lodge: Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar (reprint of the 3rd edition by Dover, 2008), p.9. (at books.google)

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   322. The parts of speech which are neither declined nor conjugated, are called by the general name of particles. 323. They are adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.

   1844, E. A. Andrews: First Lessions in Latin; or Introduction to Andrews and Stoddard's Latin Grammar. (6th edition, Boston), p.91 (at books.google)

5. ChristianityIn the Roman Catholic church, a crumb of consecrated bread; also the smaller breads used in the communion of the laity.

   the Sacred Particle

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   To receive Communion, open the mouth, letting the tongue touch the inner side of the lip, and having received the Sacred Particle on the tongue, swallow it as soon as you can, to avoid all irreverent touching of the Sacred Host with the teeth or lips.

   1882, “Communion”, in The Daily Prayer-Book […] , London: Burns & Oates

6. A little bit.

   "That doesn't make a particle of difference", replied Charlotte. "Not a particle."

   1952, E.B. White, Charlotte's Web, page 89

   Synonyms: atom, molecule, ace, atom, thought, atomy, aught, bissel