modal particle

English

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

modal particle

Where it comes from

From modal + particle, attested from the first half of the 19th century. Calque of German Modalpartikel.

noun modal particles

A word class that indicates the mood of an utterance. As far as we have been able to discover, no particles indicating the tense are ever used in conjunction with this or any of the other modal particles (except -il) , so that the time of the action must be gathered from the context.

Translations

Every language

noun linguistic class

한국어	양상소사 yangsangsosa
日本語	心態詞 shintaishi
中文	語氣助詞 /语气助词 yǔqìzhùcí, 語氣詞 /语气词 yǔqìcí
Français	particule modale
Deutsch	Modalpartikel, Abtönungspartikel
Tiếng Việt	từ ngữ khí, ngữ khí từ

Talk about this word

Cite this

MLA

"modal particle." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/modal%20particle. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

modal particle. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/modal%20particle

Chicago

"modal particle." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/modal%20particle.

BibTeX

@misc{modal_particle_2026,
  title = {modal particle},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/modal%20particle},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}