detail

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See also: Detail, détail, and de-tail

English[edit]

Detail of a door of the Hôtel Mortier de Sandreville from Paris (sense 1)

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from Middle French détail, from Old French detail, from detaillier, from de- + taillier (“to cut”).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • (noun)
    • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈdiːteɪl/
      • Audio (Southern England)(file)
    • (US) IPA(key): /ˈditeɪl/, (also) /dɪˈteɪl/
  • (verb)
    • (UK) IPA(key): /dɪˈteɪl/, /ˈdiːteɪl/
      • Audio (Southern England)(file)
      • Audio (Southern England)(file)
    • (US) IPA(key): /dɪˈteɪl/, /ˈditeɪl/
  • Rhymes: -iːteɪl, -eɪl
  • Hyphenation: de‧tail

Noun[edit]

detail (countable and uncountable, plural details)

  1. (countable) A part small enough to escape casual notice.
    Synonyms: minutia, technicality, trifle, triviality
    Note this fine detail in the lower left corner.
    We missed several important details in the contract.
  2. (uncountable) A profusion of details.
    This etching is full of fine detail.
    • 2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly‎[1], volume 189, number 6, page 18:
      Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.
  3. (uncountable) The small parts that can escape casual notice.
    • 2018 May 4, Tom English, “Steven Gerrard: A 'seriously clever or recklessly stupid' Rangers appointment”, in BBC Sport‎[2]:
      Attention to detail was said to be one of the secrets of Gerrard's success as a player.
  4. A part considered trivial enough to ignore.
    I don't concern myself with the details of accounting.
  5. (countable) A person's name, address and other personal information.
    The arresting officer asked the suspect for his details.
  6. (military, law enforcement) A temporary unit or assignment.
    Synonyms: contingent, detachment
    • 2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 7, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order […] , New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, Part II. The Neoliberal Order, 1970–2020:
      Frequently members of the small police detail dispatched to the scene joined in.
  7. An individual feature, fact, or other item, considered separately from the whole of which it is a part.
    • 2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly‎[3], volume 188, number 26, page 18:
      WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, but could not prove, and would cite as they took to the streets. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.
  8. A narrative which relates minute points; an account which dwells on particulars.
    • 1818, [Mary Shelley], chapter 6, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, →OCLC:
      "I could never persuade myself to confide in him that event which was so often present to my recollection, but which I feared the detail to another would only impress more deeply."
  9. (paintings) A selected portion of a painting.
    Synonyms: portion, section
    • 1992, Janice L. Doane, Devon L. Hodges, From Klein to Kristeva, page 53:
      On the cover of Julia Kristeva's Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia is a detail from a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, “Portrait of the Artist's Wife, Elizabeth Binzenstock, and Her Two Children, Philip and Catherine.”
    • 2001, Maryan Wynn Ainsworth, Early Netherlandish Painting at the Crossroads, page 110:
      Shrubbery and the hand of Christ (detail of plate 12)
    • 2001, Charles Russell, Self-taught Art: The Culture and Aesthetics of American Vernacular Art, page 100:
      Eight years later, the outstanding exponent of Memory Painting was herself publicly commemorated by a six-cent postage stamp showing a detail from one of her most patriotic works, July Fourth (1951).

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

Verb[edit]

detail (third-person singular simple present details, present participle detailing, simple past and past participle detailed)

  1. (transitive) To explain in detail.
    Synonym: specify
    I'll detail the exact procedure to you later.
    • 2014 November 27, Ian Black, “Courts kept busy as Jordan works to crush support for Isis”, in The Guardian‎[4]:
      It is a sunny morning in Amman and the three uniformed judges in Jordan’s state security court are briskly working their way through a pile of slim grey folders on the bench before them. Each details the charges against 25 or so defendants accused of supporting the fighters of the Islamic State (Isis), now rampaging across Syria and Iraq under their sinister black banners and sending nervous jitters across the Arab world.
  2. (transitive) To clean carefully (particularly of road vehicles) (always pronounced. /ˈdiːteɪl/)
    We need to have the minivan detailed.
  3. (transitive, military, law enforcement) To assign to a particular task.
    Synonyms: detach, second
    • 2020 October 30, Brian Glanville, “Nobby Stiles obituary”, in The Guardian‎[5]:
      Two years after England’s World Cup victory, Stiles was at Wembley again to help Manchester United become the first English team to win the European Cup final. Again Eusébio was one of his opponents, playing for Benfica, and again Stiles was detailed to keep him quiet. […]

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Czech[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

detail m inan

  1. detail
    Synonym: podrobnost

Declension[edit]

Declension of detail (hard masculine inanimate)
singular plural
nominative detail detaily
genitive detailu detailů
dative detailu detailům
accusative detail detaily
vocative detaile detaily
locative detailu detailech
instrumental detailem detaily

Related terms[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • detail in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
  • detail in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989
  • detail in Internetová jazyková příručka

Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from French détail, from Middle French [Term?], from Old French detail, from detaillier, from de- + taillier (“to cut”).

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

detail n (plural details, diminutive detailtje n)

  1. detail

Derived terms[edit]

Descendants[edit]

  • → Indonesian: detail

Indonesian[edit]

Indonesian Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia id

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English detail, from Middle French détail, from Old French detail, from detaillier, from de- + taillier (“to cut”).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • (standard) IPA(key): /dəˈtaɪl/
  • (English-influenced) IPA(key): /diˈtɛl/
  • Hyphenation: dê‧ta‧il

Noun[edit]

dêtail (first-person possessive detailku, second-person possessive detailmu, third-person possessive detailnya)

  1. detail.
    Synonyms: perincian, rincian

Alternative forms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Further reading[edit]

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