Etimology
The noun is from Middle English part, from Old English part (“part”) and Old French part (“part”); both from Latin partem, accusative of pars (“piece, portion, share, side, party, faction, role, character, lot, fate, task, lesson, part, member”), from Proto-Indo-European *par-, *per- (“to sell, exchange”). The verb is from Middle English parten, from Old French partir. Akin to portio (“a portion, part”), parare (“to make ready, prepare”). Displaced Middle English del, dele (“part”) (from Old English dǣl (“part, distribution”) > Modern English deal (“portion; amount”)), Middle English dale, dole (“part, portion”) (from Old English dāl (“portion”) > Modern English dole), Middle English sliver (“part, portion”) (from Middle English sliven (“to cut, cleave”), from Old English (tō)slīfan (“to split”)).
noun
part (plural parts)
A portion; a component.
Duty; responsibility.
(US) The dividing line formed by combing the hair in different directions.
(Judaism) In the Hebrew lunisolar calendar, a unit of time equivalent to 3⅓ seconds.
A constituent of character or capacity; quality; faculty; talent; usually in the plural with a collective sense.
Examples
Gaul is divided into three parts.
Hepaticology, outside the temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere, still lies deep in the shadow cast by that ultimate "closet taxonomist," Franz Stephani—a ghost whose shadow falls over us all.
America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 : people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.
The parts of a chainsaw include the chain, engine, and handle.
It had been arranged as part of the day's programme that Mr. Cooke was to drive those who wished to go over the Rise in his new brake.
A farmer could place an order for a new tractor part by text message and pay for it by mobile money-transfer. A supplier many miles away would then take the part to the local matternet station for airborne dispatch via drone.
I want my part of the bounty.
The mixture comprises one part sodium hydroxide and ten parts water.
Please turn to Part I, Chapter 2.
[…] the Faery knight / Besought that Damzell suffer him depart, / And yield him readie passage to that other part.
3 is a part of 12.
to do one’s part
We all have a part to play.
We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.
He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […], the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts.
The first violin part in this concerto is very challenging.
Meaning to to gaine thereby, that the fruition of life, cannot perfectly be pleaſing vnto vs, if we ſtand in any feare to looſe it. A man might nevertheleſſe ſay on the contrarie part, that we embrace and claſp this good ſo much the harder, and with more affection, as we perceive it to be leſſe ſure, and feare it ſhould be taken from vs.
He that is not against us is on our part.
Make whole kingdoms take her brother's part.
The part of his hair was slightly to the left.
which maintained so politic a state of evil, that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them.
men of considerable parts
great quickness of parts
Related words
synonyms
(action of a whole): piece, portion, component, element
(group within a larger group): faction, party
(position or role): position, role
(hair dividing line): parting (UK), shed, shoad/shode
(Hebrew calendar unit): chelek
See also Thesaurus:part
hyponyms
car part
spare part
holonyms
whole
related terms
apartment
depart
impart
partage
partial
participant
participate
participation
participial
participialize
participle
particle
particular
partisan
partisanism
partisanry
partisanship
partite
partition
partitioner
partitive
partner
party
verb
part (third-person singular simple present parts, present participle parting, simple past and past participle parted)
(intransitive) To leave the company of.
To cut hair with a parting.
(transitive) To divide in two.
(intransitive) To be divided in two or separated.
(transitive, now rare) To divide up; to share.
(obsolete) To have a part or share; to partake.
To separate or disunite; to remove from contact or contiguity; to sunder.
(obsolete) To hold apart; to stand or intervene between.
To separate by a process of extraction, elimination, or secretion.
(transitive, archaic) To leave; to quit.
(transitive, Internet) To leave (an IRC channel).
Examples
He wrung Bassanio's hand, and so they parted.
It was strange to him that a father should feel no tenderness at parting with an only son.
There is an hour when I must part / From all I hold most dear
his precious bag, which he would by no means part from
to part the curtains
I run the canoe into a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the willow branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could a seen the canoe from the outside.
A rope parts. His hair parts in the middle.
He that hath ij. cootes, lett hym parte with hym that hath none: And he that hath meate, let him do lyke wyse.
He left three sonnes, his famous progeny, / Borne of faire Inogene of Italy; / Mongst whom he parted his imperiall state […]
They parted my raiment among them.
to part his throne, and share his heaven with thee
Her friend parted his breakfast — a scanty mess of coffee and some coarse bread — with the child and her grandfather, and inquired whither they were going.
They shall part alike.
The narrow seas that part / The French and English.
While he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
"A fine man, that Dunwody, yonder," commented the young captain, as they parted, and as he turned to his prisoner. "We'll see him on in Washington some day. He is strengthening his forces now against Mr. Benton out there. […]."
The stumbling night did part our weary powers.
to part gold from silver
The liver minds his own affair, […] / And parts and strains the vital juices.
since presently your souls must part your bodies
He parted the channel saying "SHUTUP!" […] so I queried him, asking if there was something I could do […] maybe talk […] so we did […] since then, I've been seeing him on IRC every day .
adjective
part (not comparable)
Fractional; partial.
Examples
Fred was part owner of the car.
adverb
part (not comparable)
Partly; partially; fractionally.
(with reference to a person's ethnicity) to a partial degree.
Examples
Part finished
My Native American friend is also part German and part French.