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detail

UK/ˈdiː.teɪl/US/ˈdi.teɪl/
nounB15 meaningsVery common — you will meet it every day · #1,551 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: details, detailed, detailing

A detail is one small piece of the whole picture. The name spelled wrong on the form, the brass handle nobody notices, the exact minute the train leaves.

In the plural, details means the full information: send me the details, I gave them my bank details, the details of the plan. Attention to detail is care about the small things, and in detail means fully rather than in outline — she explained it in detail. Detail is a verb as well, meaning to describe something item by item: the report details every payment. In the army and in security work, a detail is a small group given one job, as in a security detail. The devil is in the detail — the trouble hides in the small print.

Definitions of detail

  1. 1nounpointOne small fact or feature of something larger.B1~6%

    “One detail in her story did not match the receipt.”

    synonyms: particular, point

  2. 2nounfullFull information about something, given in the plural.B1~69%

    “Email me the details and I will book it.”

  3. 3noundetailThe small parts of a picture, a building or a piece of work, taken together.B1~12%

    “The carving on the door repays a close look at the detail.”

  4. 4verbdescribeTo describe something fully, item by item.B2~11%

    “The letter details every charge on the account.”

  5. 5noungroupA small group of people given a particular duty.C1~2%

    “A security detail followed the minister everywhere.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

detail is a small part of something larger.

Phrases it lives in

  • in detail — fully, going through the small parts
  • the devil is in the detail — the small parts are where the problems hide

Where it comes from

Detail comes from cutting. Old French detaillier was de- plus taillier, to cut, so a detail was a piece cut off the whole and looked at on its own. Middle French détail passed it to English, where it kept exactly that shape: the small part sliced out of the big thing.

  1. Old French

    detail

  2. Middle French

    détail

  3. English, today

    detail

Built from

  • taillier · Old French — to cut

Middle French détail, from Old French detail, from detaillier, from de- + taillier (“to cut”). Compare typologically подробност, podrobnost, подро́бность (akin to дроби́ть).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Big Ideas, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 2 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

detail in the wild

  • In law schools, treatises are sometimes used as additional study materials, as treatises often cover legal subjects at a higher level of detail than most casebooks do.

    Legal treatise

  • Each episode is 90 minutes long, airs live, and examines a specific case in detail.

    Landmark Cases: Historic Supreme Court Decisions

  • The condition was first described in detail in 1773 by John Fothergill.

    Trigeminal neuralgia

  • Although the diseases differ in detail, liver diseases often have features in common.

    Liver disease

  • Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms.

    Chemist

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.