Confusing words: Part, a part, apart
Here’s another English-language vocabulary post, inspired by something that came up in a recent conversation with a student. This time I’ll be doing a short explainer on the differences between these deceptively similar words:
PART vs A PART
The word ‘part’ can be used as a verb (do look up its meanings), but here we’re interested in the noun. First, it can be uncountable, meaning ‘some but not all of a thing’. It’s important to remember that this ‘part’ is an inseparable piece of the whole:
Part of my homework was very difficult.
Part of the problem is that you aren’t studying hard enough.
Stress is just part of the job.
If used as a countable noun – with the indefinite article ‘a’ when used in the singular – the meaning is not quite the same: ‘a part’ is a separate or separable part of a larger whole.
Sometimes this difference in meaning is really not that important at all, but using ‘a part’ will simply put more emphasis on that individual element:
The chip is a part of the mobile phone. [It’s an individual piece, removable and separable from the rest of the phone as a whole.]
Bad team work played a part in my decision to quit my job. [Implying there were also other reasons, entirely separate from this specific one.]
APART
Now, unlike the difference between ‘part’ and ‘a part’ which is quite small, you need to be careful with ‘apart.’ This word can be an adverb meaning ‘at a little distance’ (in either time or space), or an adjective meaning ‘separated, divided.’
He was standing apart from us. [at a small distance]
Our houses are 2 kilometers apart. [away from each other]
‘Apart’ has additional meanings, which you can check out by clicking on the links found below.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Difference between part and apart (a StackExchange forum)
Apart (entry in the MerriamWebster Dictionary)
Apart vs. a Part: What’s the Difference? (a QuillBot article)
NOTES
I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.
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