• (America) IPA: /ˈpɑɹʃəl/
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈpɑːʃəl/


  1. existing as a part or portion; incomplete
    So far, I have only pieced together a partial account of the incident.
  2. (computer science) describing a property that holds only when an algorithm terminates
    It's easy to prove partial correctness, but it's not obvious that it is also totally correct.
  3. biased in favor of a person, side, or point of view, especially when dealing with a competition or dispute
    Antonyms: impartial
    The referee is blatantly partial!
    • 17th century, Alexander Pope, a letter
      quote en
  4. (followed by the preposition to) having a predilection for something
    • 1815 February 23, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. [...] In Three Volumes, volume (please specify ), Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], OCLC 742335644 ↗:
    Synonyms: fond of
  5. (mathematics) of or relating to a partial derivative or partial differential
  6. (botany) subordinate
Translations Translations Noun

partial (plural partials)

  1. (mathematics) A partial derivative: a derivative with respect to one independent variable of a function in multiple variables while holding the other variables constant.
  2. (music) Any of the sine waves which make up a complex tone; often an overtone or harmonic of the fundamental.
  3. (dentistry) dentures that replace only some of the natural teeth
  4. (forensics) An incomplete fingerprint
  5. (programming, internet) A fragment of a template containing markup.
    • 2009, Antonio Cangiano, Ruby on Rails for Microsoft Developers (page 356)
      In fact, as seen in Chapters 5 and 6, the resulting document is usually the product of rendering a layout, which yields the rendering of the template at hand, which in turn can invoke the rendering of other templates and/or one or more partials.

partial (partials, present participle partialing; past and past participle partialed)

  1. (statistics, transitive) To take the partial regression coefficient.

Offline English dictionary