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particular

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

Special or belonging only to one specific person or thing

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pertikyuhler

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

pɚˈtɪkjəlɚ

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.

noun

  1. now philosophychiefly in plural

    A particular case; an individual thing as opposed to a whole class. (Opposed to generals, universals.)

  2. A small part that can be considered separately from the whole

  3. A small individual part of something larger; a detail, a point.

adjective

  1. Specific; discrete; concrete.

  2. Specialised; characteristic of a specific person or thing.

  3. Distinguished in some way; special (often in negative constructions).

  4. Concerned with, or attentive to, details; minute; circumstantial; precise.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A particular case; an individual thing as opposed to a whole class. (Opposed to generals, universals.)

Used this way, particular is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in academic writing contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Academic writing

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Containing / forming

particular attention

Concerned

particular interest

Holding

particular type

Other combinations

particular casesome particularparticular kindparticular formparticular importance

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • particularlyadverbDerived adverb

    To a distinctly greater extent or degree than is common.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • particular propositionnounCompound term

    A proposition that asserts something about some (but not all) members of a class.

  • particular baptistnounCompound term

    Group of Baptist congregations believing the teachings of the French theologian John Calvin who believed in strict predetermination.

  • bill of particularsnounCompound term

    The particular events to be dealt with in a criminal trial.

  • in particularadverbCompound term

    Specifically or especially distinguished from others.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

noun

Sense: particular case

detail

adjective

Sense: specific

peculiar

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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.