SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
partial
adjective
Favoring one side or person instead of judging evenhandedly.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Showing favoritism
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topPartial here concerns biased judgment, rather than something incomplete or only partly done.
Only part of a whole
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topPartial describes less than the whole. An unfinished task is incomplete because work remains, while a partial selection may be deliberately limited.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See partial in use
A partial reviewer praised the favored team while ignoring comparable achievements elsewhere.
A partial assistant sent detailed course diagrams to his own club while denying other teams access to the same useful information.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license