| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
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| partial (adj.) |
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| meaning “favoring one person or thing more than another,” combines with to and toward and is usually a predicate adjective: She’s partial to chocolate in any form. Grandmother was always partial toward [to] my brother. The other use of partial is regularly both an attributive adjective and a predicate adjective. It means “incomplete, involving only a part, not the whole”: We had only a partial success, not a complete one. In a sentence such as They offered only a partial explanation, it’s not certain whether partial means “biased and preferential” or “incomplete, not full.” Be careful to make context prevent ambiguity. | 1 |
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| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
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