detail

Noun

detail (countable and uncountable, plural details)

1. (countable) A part small enough to escape casual notice.
   • Note this fine detail in the lower left corner.
   • We missed several important details in the contract.

   Synonyms:

   minutia, technicality, trifle, triviality

2. (uncountable) A profusion of details.
   • This etching is full of fine detail.
   • 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...2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, archived from the original on 14 May 2021, page 18
3. (uncountable) The small parts that can escape casual notice.
   • Attention to detail was said to be one of the secrets of Gerrard's success as a player.2018 May 4, Tom English, “Steven Gerrard: A 'seriously clever or recklessly stupid' Rangers appointment”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 26 Mar 2019
4. A part considered trivial enough to ignore.
   • I don't concern myself with the details of accounting.
   • Safety at work is not a mere detail.
5. (countable) A person's name, address and other personal information.
   • The arresting officer asked the suspect for his details.
6. A temporary unit or assignment.
   • Frequently members of the small police detail dispatched to the scene joined in.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

   Synonyms:

   contingent, detachment

7. An individual feature, fact, or other item, considered separately from the whole of which it is a part.
   • 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...2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, archived from the original on 11 Apr 2021, page 18
8. A narrative which relates minute points; an account which dwells on particulars.
   • "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."1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter 6, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for...
9. (paintings) A selected portion of a painting.
   • 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.”1992, Janice L. Doane, Devon L. Hodges, From Klein to Kristeva, page 53
   • Shrubbery and the hand of Christ (detail of plate 12)2001, Maryan Wynn Ainsworth, Early Netherlandish Painting at the Crossroads, page 110

   Synonyms:

   portion, section

Verb

UK/dɪˈteɪl/US/dɪˈteɪl/

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

1. (transitive) To explain in detail.
   • I'll detail the exact procedure to you later.
   • 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...2014 November 27, Ian Black, “Courts kept busy as Jordan works to crush support for Isis”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 21 Nov 2020

   Synonyms:

   specify

2. (transitive) To clean carefully (particularly of road vehicles, always pronounced /ˈdiːteɪl/)
   • We need to have the minivan detailed.
3. (transitive) To assign to a particular task.
   • 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. […]2020 October 30, Brian Glanville, “Nobby Stiles obituary”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 12 Apr 2021

   Synonyms:

   detach, second