| particle | |
| 1. n. A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something. | |
| 2. n. (physics) Any of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom; an elementary particle or subatomic particle. | |
| 3. n. (linguistics) A word that has a particular grammatical function but does not obviously belong to any particular part of speech, such as the word to in English infinitives or O as a vocative particle. | |
| 4. n. (linguistics) A part of speech which cannot be inflected: an adverb, preposition, conjunction or interjection. | |
| 5. n. (Christianity) In the Roman Catholic church, a crumb of consecrated bread; also the smaller breads used in the communion of the laity. | |
