| particle | | |
| n. (substance) | 1. atom, corpuscle, molecule, mote, particle, speck | (nontechnical usage) a tiny piece of anything. |
| ~ grain | a relatively small granular particle of a substance.; "a grain of sand"; "a grain of sugar" |
| ~ grinding | material resulting from the process of grinding.; "vegetable grindings clogged the drain" |
| ~ material, stuff | the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object.; "coal is a hard black material"; "wheat is the stuff they use to make bread" |
| ~ chylomicron | a microscopic particle of triglycerides produced in the intestines during digestion; in the bloodstream they release their fatty acids into the blood. |
| ~ flyspeck | a tiny dark speck made by the excrement of a fly. |
| ~ identification particle | a tiny particle of material that can be added to a product to indicate the source of manufacture. |
| n. (object) | 2. particle, subatomic particle | a body having finite mass and internal structure but negligible dimensions. |
| ~ virion | (virology) a complete viral particle; nucleic acid and capsid (and a lipid envelope in some viruses). |
| ~ alpha particle | a positively charged particle that is the nucleus of the helium atom; emitted from natural or radioactive isotopes. |
| ~ beta particle | a high-speed electron or positron emitted in the decay of a radioactive isotope. |
| ~ body | an individual 3-dimensional object that has mass and that is distinguishable from other objects.; "heavenly body" |
| ~ boson | any particle that obeys Bose-Einstein statistics but not the Pauli exclusion principle; all nuclei with an even mass number are bosons. |
| ~ deuteron | the nucleus of deuterium; consists of one proton and one neutron; used as a bombarding particle in accelerators. |
| ~ elementary particle, fundamental particle | (physics) a particle that is less complex than an atom; regarded as constituents of all matter. |
| ~ fermion | any particle that obeys Fermi-Dirac statistics and is subject to the Pauli exclusion principle. |
| ~ ion | a particle that is electrically charged (positive or negative); an atom or molecule or group that has lost or gained one or more electrons. |
| ~ magnetic monopole | a hypothetical particle with a single magnetic pole instead of the usual two. |
| ~ micelle | an electrically charged particle built up from polymeric molecules or ions and occurring in certain colloidal electrolytic solutions like soaps and detergents. |
| ~ prion | (microbiology) an infectious protein particle similar to a virus but lacking nucleic acid; thought to be the agent responsible for scrapie and other degenerative diseases of the nervous system. |
| ~ virino | (microbiology) a hypothetical infectious particle thought to be the cause of scrapie and other degenerative diseases of the central nervous system; consists of nucleic acid in a protective coat of host cell proteins. |
| ~ scintilla | a sparkling glittering particle. |
| ~ superstring | a hypothetical particle that is the elementary particle in a theory of space-time. |
| ~ thermion | an electrically charged particle (electron or ion) emitted by a substance at a high temperature. |
| n. (communication) | 3. particle | a function word that can be used in English to form phrasal verbs. |
| ~ closed-class word, function word | a word that is uninflected and serves a grammatical function but has little identifiable meaning. |
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