particle
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
8 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "particle", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "particle" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "particle" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
particle is aEnglishnoun. It means: A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something. Pronounced /ˈpɑːtɪk(ə)l/. It ranks #8,326 in English word frequency. Often confused with particles and partial.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | particle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpɑːtɪk(ə)l/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #8,326 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for particle is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpɑːtɪk(ə)l/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,326 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 12 documented wrong-spelling variants for particle, with forms such as "aprticle", "paritcle", and "parrticle". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "particles", "partial", "participle", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle French particule, and its source, Latin particula (“small part, particle”), diminutive of pars (“part, piece”). Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is particle, spelled P-A-R-T-I-C-L-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.
- 2Any of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom; an elementary particle or subatomic particle.
- 3A 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).
- 4A part of speech which cannot be inflected.
- 5In the Roman Catholic church, a crumb of consecrated bread; also the smaller breads used in the communion of the laity.
- 6A little bit.
Etymology
From Middle French particule, and its source, Latin particula (“small part, particle”), diminutive of pars (“part, piece”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aprticle,paritcle,parrticle,partcile,particcle,particel,particlle,partilce,partticle,patricle,pparticle,praticle
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for particle
Misspelling Variants of "particle"
Frequency rank: #8,326 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: