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partial

adjective

Simple meaning

Existing as a part or portion.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pahrshuhl

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈpɑɹʃəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Existing as a part or portion; incomplete.

  2. Biased in favor of a person, side, or point of view, especially when dealing with a competition or dispute.

  3. followed by the preposition to

    Having a predilection for something.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

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More ways to use partial

  • “The forecast called for a partial eclipse of the moon tonight.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Relating / partial

partial differentialpartial derivative

Having a predilection

partial fulfillment

Other combinations

partial pressurepartial correlationpartial paymentpartial denturepartial list

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • partynounDerived noun · specialist

    An organization to gain political power.

  • partlyadverbDerived adverb

    To some extent.

  • partiallyadverbDerived adverb

    To some extent.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • partial verdictnounCompound term

    A finding that the defendant is guilty of some charges but innocent of others.

  • partial denturenounCompound term

    A denture replacing one or more teeth in a dental arch.

  • partial derivativenounCompound term

    The derivative of a function of two or more variables with respect to a single variable while the other variables are considered to be constant.

  • partial differential equationnounCompound term

    A differential equation involving a functions of more than one variable.

  • partial eclipsenounCompound term

    An eclipse in which the eclipsed body is only partially obscured.

  • partial tonenounCompound term

    A harmonic with a frequency that is a multiple of the fundamental frequency.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: existing as a part or portion

impartial

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.