partial
Noun pluralpartials
Pluralpartials
- 1Forming only a part or portion of something, and therefore incomplete.
The witness could give only a partial account of what happened.
During a partial eclipse, the moon covers just some of the sun.
Similarincomplete, limited, fragmentary
Note
The root sense, and the oldest idea in the word: Late Latin partiālis meant simply "of or pertaining to a part," from Latin pars. Old French parcial already leaned toward "biased," which is why the "unfair" meaning has always shadowed this one. A partial account can therefore be read two ways, as incomplete or as slanted, and context rather than grammar decides which.
- 2Favoring one person, side, or point of view unfairly, especially in a competition or dispute.
Critics accused the committee of being partial toward local applicants.
An umpire who is partial to one club quickly loses the league's trust.
Similarbiased, prejudiced, unfair, one-sided
Oppositeimpartial
Note
Bias as a lean toward one side, the sense behind Alexander Pope's "partial parent." Its everyday opposite is impartial, the word of praise for a fair referee or judge. The preposition helps tell it from the "fond of" meaning. Someone partial toward a side judges unfairly, while someone partial to strong coffee merely enjoys it.
- 3Having a special liking or preference for something.
My grandfather was partial to a strong cup of coffee each morning.
Travelers who are partial to quiet beaches tend to avoid the resort town.
Similarfond
Note
Fondness rather than unfairness, and it nearly always arrives with to: partial to a strong coffee, partial to quiet beaches. Fond of is the close equivalent. Jane Austen uses it of romantic feeling in Pride and Prejudice (1817): "if a woman is partial to a man." Walter Scott's Guy Mannering (1815) shows its favorite pose, the polite negative "not partial to," a gentle way of expressing distaste.
- 4A dental appliance that replaces some but not all of a person's natural teeth.
After losing two molars, she was fitted for a partial.
The clasps on his partial hook onto the remaining teeth.
Note
A dentist's clipping of partial denture, the counterpart of a full set. Patients are "fitted for a partial." The appliance is held in place by clasps that hook onto the remaining natural teeth, and those surviving teeth are what make a partial possible at all.
- 5Relating to a partial derivative or partial differential, in which one variable changes while the others are held constant.
The equation involves a partial derivative with respect to time.
Engineers solve partial differential equations to model fluid flow.
Note
Calculus uses the adjective in fixed phrases such as partial derivative, partial differential and partial differential equation. In these phrases it means "with respect to one variable at a time," not "unfinished." A partial derivative is as exact as an ordinary one; it simply holds the other variables still. The phrase also clips down to the noun partial.
- 6A derivative taken with respect to one variable of a multivariable function while the other variables are held constant.
She set the partial with respect to y equal to zero to find the critical point.
The gradient is just a vector of the function's partials.
Note
A clipping of partial derivative, the everyday shorthand of working mathematicians. It usually takes with respect to, as in the partial with respect to y, and it pluralizes freely: a gradient is simply the vector of a function's partials. The fuller phrase and its relatives belong to the calculus adjective.
- 7Any of the simple sine waves that together make up a complex musical tone, often an overtone or harmonic above the fundamental.
A bell's eerie sound comes from partials that aren't simple whole-number multiples of the fundamental.
Tuning software lets you see each partial in the spectrum of a sustained note.
Similarovertone
Note
Acoustics and music use it as the umbrella term: every sine component of a tone is a partial, the fundamental included. Harmonics are the partials that fall at whole-number multiples of the fundamental. Others, like the clashing components of a bell, are inharmonic. So every harmonic is a partial, but not every partial is a harmonic, and overtone strictly names only the partials above the fundamental.
- 8An incomplete fingerprint that captures only a portion of the full ridge pattern.
Investigators lifted a partial from the door handle.
The smudged partial matched several points but not enough for a positive identification.
Note
Forensic shorthand for a partial fingerprint, and usually the object of lift: investigators lift a partial from a handle or a glass. The word carries a built-in caution. A partial may agree with a suspect's print on several points and still fall short of a positive identification.
- 9An exercise repetition performed through only part of the full range of motion.
After failing on full reps, she pushed out three partials at the top of the movement.
Coaches sometimes add a partial to overload a specific part of the lift.
Note
Gym vocabulary, with half rep as its plainer synonym. Edward L. Wallace's Omniflex (2021) groups heavy partials with eccentrics and static exercise as methods that may need days or weeks of recovery. Lifters use partials to overload one stretch of a movement, or to keep a set going after full-range repetitions have failed.
- 10A reusable fragment of a template containing markup, included within larger templates.
The developer extracted the navigation bar into a partial.
Each blog post renders its comment form from a shared partial.
Note
A web developer's term from templating frameworks. Antonio Cangiano's Ruby on Rails for Microsoft Developers (2009) describes how a layout renders a template, which in turn can render one or more partials. Developers extract markup that repeats, such as a navigation bar or a comment form, into a partial and render it wherever it is needed.
- 11Describing a property that holds only when an algorithm terminates, as in partial correctness.
The team verified partial correctness but left termination unproven.
A partial specification promises a correct result only on terminating runs.
Oppositetotal
Note
A term from program verification, met almost always in the phrase partial correctness. Proving it shows that any answer the algorithm gives is right, but it says nothing about whether an answer ever arrives. A proof of termination upgrades the claim to total correctness. The two are easy to blur, and the gap between them is exactly the question of whether the program halts.
- 12In botany, describing a subordinate part of a larger compound structure, such as a partial umbel within a compound umbel.
A compound umbel is built from several partial umbels, each on its own stalk.
Botanists label the smaller secondary cluster a partial umbel.
Note
Here the word means subordinate, not incomplete. A partial umbel is a whole cluster in its own right, but it sits on its own stalk as one unit within a compound umbel. The larger structure repeats its pattern at a smaller scale. When reading botanical descriptions, take partial as "secondary" rather than as "missing something."
- 13A furry costume that covers only part of the wearer's body rather than the whole of it.
For summer events, many fursuiters prefer a partial over a full suit.
The maker finished the partial with a matching set of paws and a tail.
Note
Slang of the furry fandom, defined against the full fursuit. A partial is the lighter alternative: pieces such as a head, paws and tail worn with ordinary clothes. Outside the fandom the bare noun needs explaining, so in general writing partial fursuit is the safer phrase.
- 14Of a cryptic crossword clue, having a wordplay element but no definition.
Solvers grumbled that the partial clue offered wordplay but no definition to confirm the answer.
A partial clue leaves the solver guessing without a definitional anchor.
Note
A cryptic crossword clue normally pairs a definition with wordplay, and the definition is what confirms the answer. A partial clue drops it. Because that breaks the usual contract, setters announce such clues in the puzzle's instructions. The Listener did so in 1982 for a group of six-letter lights, and New York Magazine flagged its "(partial) clues" in 1996.
- 15To compute the partial regression coefficient, isolating one variable's effect while accounting for the others.
Analysts partial out income to see whether education alone predicts the outcome.
The model partials the confounding variable from the correlation entirely.
Note
A working verb of statistics, almost always followed by out. Analysts partial out income or age so that its influence is removed before the remaining relationship is measured. It can also take from, as in partialing a confounder from a correlation. The spelling splits by region: American usage has partialed and partialing, British usage partialled and partialling.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
It comes through Middle English "partiall" and Old French "parcial" (meaning biased or particular), from Late Latin "partiālis" (of or pertaining to a part), which came from Latin "pars" (part).