part

Etymology

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

1. A portion; a component.
   1. A fraction of a whole.
      Gaul is divided into three parts.
      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. 2013-06-01, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 11
   2. A distinct element of something larger.
      The parts of a chainsaw include the chain, engine, and handle.
      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. 2012-12-01, “An internet of airborne things”, in The Economist, volume 405, number 8813, page 3 (Technology Quarterly)
   3. A group inside a larger group.
   4. Share, especially of a profit.
      I want my part of the bounty.
   5. A unit of relative proportion in a mixture.
      The mixture comprises one part sodium hydroxide and ten parts water.
   6. 3.5 centiliters of one ingredient in a mixed drink.
   7. A section of a document.
      Please turn to Part I, Chapter 2.
   8. A section of land; an area of a country or other territory; region.
   9. (mathematics, dated) A factor.
      3 is a part of 12.
   10. (US) A room in a public building, especially a courtroom.
2. Duty; responsibility.
   1. Position or role (especially in a play).
      We all have a part to play.
   2. (music) The melody played or sung by a particular instrument, voice, or group of instruments or voices, within a polyphonic piece.
      The first violin part in this concerto is very challenging.
   3. Each of two contrasting sides of an argument, debate etc.; "hand".
      Make whole kingdoms take her brother's part. 1650, Edmund Waller, to my Lady Morton (epistle)
3. (US) The dividing line formed by combing the hair in different directions.
   The part of his hair was slightly to the left.
4. (Judaism) In the Hebrew lunisolar calendar, a unit of time equivalent to 3⅓ seconds.
5. A constituent of character or capacity; quality; faculty; talent; usually in the plural with a collective sense.

verb

1. (intransitive) To leave the company of.
   It was strange to him that a father should feel no tenderness at parting with an only son. 1879, Anthony Trollope, John Caldigate
   There is an hour when I must part / From all I hold most dear 1841, Andrew Reed, The is an Hour when I must Part
   his precious bag, which he would by no means part from 1860, George Eliot, Recollections of Italy
2. To cut hair with a parting; shed.
3. (transitive) To divide in two.
   to part the curtains
4. (intransitive) To be divided in two or separated; shed.
   A rope parts.  His hair parts in the middle.
5. (transitive, now rare) To divide up; to share.
6. (obsolete) To have a part or share; to partake.
7. To separate or disunite; to remove from contact or contiguity; to sunder.
8. (obsolete) To hold apart; to stand or intervene between.
9. To separate by a process of extraction, elimination, or secretion.
   to part gold from silver
   The liver minds his own affair, […] / And parts and strains the vital juices.
10. (transitive, archaic) To leave; to quit.
11. (transitive, Internet) To leave (an IRC channel).
    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 (really can't imagine him not being on IRC anymore actually). 2000, Phantom, “Re: Uhm... hi... I guess...”, in alt.support.boy-lovers (Usenet)

adj

1. Fractional; partial.
   Fred was part owner of the car.

adv

1. Partly; partially; fractionally.
   Part finished