English noun: particle |
1. | particle (substance) (nontechnical usage) a tiny piece of anything |
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| Synonyms | atom, corpuscle, molecule, mote, speck |
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| Broader (hypernym) | material, stuff |
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| Narrower (hyponym) | chylomicron, flyspeck, grain, grinding, identification particle |
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2. | particle (object) a body having finite mass and internal structure but negligible dimensions |
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| Synonyms | subatomic particle |
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| Broader (hypernym) | body |
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| Narrower (hyponym) | alpha particle, beta particle, boson, deuteron, elementary particle, fermion, fundamental particle, ion, magnetic monopole, micelle, prion, scintilla, superstring, thermion, virino, virion |
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3. | particle (communication) a function word that can be used in English to form phrasal verbs |
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| Broader (hypernym) | closed-class word, function word |
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