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particulate

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Etymology and origin of the English word particulate

Pronunciation

  • UK: /pɑːˈtɪk.jʊ.lɪt/, /pɑːˈtɪk.jʊˌleɪt/[1]
  • US: /pɑɹˈtɪk.jə.lət/, /pɑɹˈtɪk.jəˌleɪt/[1]

particulate1 to particularize

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1579 Fenton's translation of Guicciardini
Borrowed from
Latin particulo
Ultimate origin
Latin pars

Etymology

The verb meaning to particularize is borrowed from Medieval Latin particulō (“to particularize; to treat in detail, specify”), recorded from the 11th century and in British sources from the 12th, with the English verb formed on its past participial stem.[2] The Medieval Latin verb comes from Latin particula (“a small part, particle”),[2] the diminutive of pars (“part”).[3] Johnson derived the English verb from particular.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To mention one by one, to particularize: 1579, in Geoffrey Fenton's translation of Guicciardini's Historie.[2]

Semantic evolution

An intransitive use, to go into particulars, is recorded from 1596 to 1605.[2] Johnson (1755) already called the verb obsolete, defining it as "to make mention singly" and quoting Camden's Remains: "I may not particulate of Alexander Hales, the irrefragable doctor."[4] The OED's last record of the transitive verb is from 1867, and it takes the 20th-century verb "to reduce to particles" as a new formation from the adjective.[2]

Timeline

  • 1579 – transitive, to particularize, mention in detail (obsolete by 1867).[2]
  • 1596 – intransitive, to go into particulars (obsolete by 1605).[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (obsolete, 1579–1867) To mention one by one; to particularize.[2][4]

particulate2 made of particles

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1870 a report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council
Borrowed from
Latin particulatus
Ultimate origin
Latin pars

Etymology

The word for things made of particles is borrowed from Late Latin particulatus (“divided into small parts”),[2][3][5] a word of the Vetus Latina formed from Latin particula (“a small part, particle”) and the suffix -ātus.[2] Etymonline and Dictionary.com call the Latin word Modern Latin,[3][5] while Barnhart, Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the Oxford dictionaries form the English word from the Latin noun and the English suffix -ate.[6][7][8][9] The Latin noun is the diminutive of pars (“part, piece”),[3] from Proto-Indo-European *pere- (“to grant, allot”),[3] and the source of particle.[10][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Existing as minute separate particles: 1870, in J. B. Sanderson's contribution to a report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council.[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also gives 1870, Barnhart and Etymonline 1871.[7][6][3]

Semantic evolution

The adjective soon had the sense "relating to minute particles" (1881),[2] and in 1885 Francis Galton used it in genetics for inheritance in which offspring show discrete characters, each from one parent or the other.[2] A rare sense, affecting only certain parts of a whole, appears in 1920.[2] The noun, a substance made of particles, especially as a contaminant, is recorded from 1942 in Merriam-Webster Unabridged,[7] from 1949 in the OED[2] and only from 1960 in Barnhart and Etymonline;[6][3] in the plural it now often means the fine particles given off when fuel burns.[11] The verb "to reduce to particles" appears in 1919.[2]

Timeline

  • 1870 – existing as minute separate particles.[2][7] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1871.[6][3]
  • 1881 – relating to minute separate particles.[2]
  • 1885 – in genetics, of inheritance in discrete characters, in Galton.[2]
  • 1919 – verb, to reduce to particles.[2]
  • 1920 – affecting only certain parts of a whole (rare).[2]
  • 1942 – noun, a particulate substance.[7] The OED's first record is from 1949, and Barnhart and Etymonline date the noun to 1960.[2][6][3]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Existing as, or made up of, minute separate particles: the particulate matter given off by diesel engines.[7][11][2]
  2. Of or relating to separate particles.[7][2]
  3. (genetics) Relating to inheritance in which offspring show discrete characters, each from one parent or the other.[2][11][9]
  4. (rare) Affecting only certain parts of a whole.[2]

Noun

  1. A substance made of separate particles, especially as a pollutant; in the plural, the fine particles produced when fuel burns.[11][7][2]

Verb

  1. To reduce to particles.[2]

Word family

  • nonparticulate
  • particulate inheritance

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Particulate.” Etymologically, 8 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/particulate. Accessed 9 Nov. 2026.

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