detail
Pluraldetails
Verbdetails, detailing, detailed
Pluraldetails
Formsdetails, detailing, detailed
- 1A single fact, feature, or item, especially a small one, considered on its own as part of a larger whole.
Every detail of the plan mattered to the committee.
He examined one detail at a time before drawing any conclusion.
UsageOften plural: the details of the plan. every detail and down to the last detail mean all of them.
Similarnicety
- 2To describe or explain something thoroughly, covering each part or point in turn.
The final report will detail every step the company took to clean up the spill, from the first call to the last inspection.
The proposal details the costs and benefits of each option.
UsageUsually a report, letter or plan details something. The thing explained comes straight after it, with no about.
Similarspecify
Oppositesummarize, generalize
- 3Small parts or fine points taken all together rather than one by one, the kind that only someone looking closely will notice.
Photographers love this camera for the fine detail it records.
The miniature ship is built with astonishing detail throughout.
UsageCommon in attention to detail and fine detail. Compare: you notice a detail, but you pay attention to detail.
- 4The telling or treatment of something point by point, dwelling on its particular facts and features.
The memoir relates each meeting in painstaking detail.
Her diary records the voyage in remarkable detail.
UsageMostly in in detail, often with an adjective: in great detail, in painstaking detail. Also go into detail.
Similardepth, thoroughness, specificity
Oppositeoutline, brief, summary
Note
In this use the word names the telling rather than the thing told. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the narrator fears that "the detail to another" of a painful event would only impress it more deeply. There the detail is the act of recounting it point by point.
- 5A piece of someone's personal information, such as their name, address, or contact information.
The clerk needed one more contact detail, a phone number, to finish the booking.
Please confirm your bank details before the payment goes through.
UsageUsually plural: your details, contact details, bank details.
Less common meanings
- 6To clean something, especially a car, very thoroughly, including hard-to-reach areas and fine surfaces.
Specialists detail vintage cars before each auction.
The crew spent hours detailing the limousine after the wedding.
UsageMostly of cars. Often have a car detailed: pay someone to do it rather than doing it yourself.
Note
The trade sense, and the one with its own pronunciation: the stress always falls on the first syllable, /ˈdiːteɪl/. The work goes beyond an ordinary wash to the hidden and fiddly surfaces.
- 7A temporary unit of personnel, or the short-term assignment given to them, in military or law-enforcement settings.
A detail was sent ahead to secure the building before the visit.
He drew guard detail on his first night at the base.
UsageUsually after the job: guard detail, security detail. Someone is on a detail or assigned to one.
Similardetachment, contingent
Note
A military and police word for people pulled from their usual posting for one job, and for the job itself. A guard detail and a burial detail are typical, and Gary Gerstle's The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order (2022) has a small police detail dispatched to the scene. Detachment and contingent are near synonyms, but a detail is defined by its temporary task. The assignment itself is made with the verb "to assign".
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Gary Gerstle wrote The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, first published in 2022. sid.cam.ac.uk
- The book contains a passage about a small police detail dispatched to the scene. en.wiktionary.org
- 8A point regarded as too small or trivial to be worth any attention.
The exact wording is a detail; the main idea is what counts.
She waved the objection aside as a minor detail.
UsageOften just a detail, a mere detail or a minor detail, said to brush a point aside.
Similartechnicality, trifle, triviality
- 9To assign a person or group to carry out a particular task or duty.
Supervisors detail extra staff to the busiest stations each morning.
The chief detailed three deputies to patrol the festival grounds.
UsageOften passive: someone is detailed to a duty or to do something.
Similardetach
Note
Troops or deputies are detailed to a duty for the time being rather than transferred for good. The result of the act is a temporary unit or task, so verb and noun travel together in the same military and police settings.
- 10A selected portion of a painting, often reproduced on its own to show a close-up section.
The gallery hung a detail of the mural at eye level for visitors.
A detail of the portrait revealed cracks invisible in the full view.
Usagea detail of or from a painting; in captions, (detail) follows the title.
Note
Art books and catalogs use it as a caption term, as in "Shrubbery and the hand of Christ (detail of plate 12)." A reproduced detail isolates part of a painting so that brushwork, a figure or the condition of the surface shows at a scale the whole cannot give.
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Practice
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Origin
The Old French verb detaillier, made of de- and taillier ("to cut"), produced the noun detail, which English borrowed through Middle French détail.