English Dictionary

particle

/ˈpɑːtɪk(ə)l/

名詞

A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.

日本語の意味

ごく小さい物質の断片、微粒子。物質を構成する最小の部分や極めて小さな断片を指す。

I saw a particle of dust floating in the air.

意味（1）

A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.

意味（2）

(physics) Any of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom; an elementary particle or subatomic particle.

What, he asked himself, does quantum theory have to say about the familiar properties of particles such as position?

意味（3）

(linguistics) A 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).

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.

意味（4）

(linguistics) A part of speech which cannot be inflected.

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.

意味（5）

(Christianity) In the Roman Catholic church, a crumb of consecrated bread; also the smaller breads used in the communion of the laity.

意味（6）

A little bit.

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

particles （ plural ）