particle

noun

1. a minute portion, piece, fragment, or amount; a tiny or very small bit: a particle of dust; not a particle of supporting evidence.
2. Physics.
   1. one of the extremely small constituents of matter, as an atom or nucleus.
   2. an elementary particle, quark, or gluon.
   3. a body in which the internal motion is negligible.
3. a clause or article, as of a document.
4. Grammar.
   1. (in some languages) one of the major form classes, or parts of speech, consisting of words that are neither nouns nor verbs, or of all uninflected words, or the like.
   2. such a word.
   3. a small word of functional or relational use, as an article, preposition, or conjunction, whether of a separate form class or not.
5. Roman Catholic Church. a small piece of the Host given to each lay communicant in a Eucharistic service.

noun

1. an extremely small piece of matter; speck
2. a very tiny amount; iotait doesn’t make a particle of difference
3. a function word, esp (in certain languages) a word belonging to an uninflected class having suprasegmental or grammatical functionthe Greek particles “mēn” and “de” are used to express contrast; questions in Japanese are indicated by the particle “ka”; English “up” is sometimes regarded as an adverbial particle
4. a common affix, such as re-, un-, or -ness
5. physics a body with finite mass that can be treated as having negligible size, and internal structure
6. See elementary particle
7. RC Church a small piece broken off from the Host at Mass
8. archaic a section or clause of a document

n.late 14c., “small part or division of a whole, minute portion of matter,” from Latin particula “little bit or part, grain, jot,” diminutive of pars (genitive partis) “part;” see part (n.). Particle physics attested from 1969. In construction, particle board (1957) is so called because it is made from chips and shavings of wood. n.

1. A very small piece or part.
2. An elementary particle.
3. A subatomic particle.

1. A very small piece of solid matter.
2. An elementary particle, subatomic particle, or atomic nucleus. Also called corpuscle