Topics: Database
In databases, we say that a relation (table) has a partial dependency if there exists a non-prime attribute that is functionally dependant on only a part of any candidate key.
For example, if a candidate key in our relation is made up of 2 attributes, and there exists a non-prime attribute that only depends on one of these 2 attributes, then the relation has a partial dependency.
Partial dependencies are to be avoided if we want to have a relation in the second normal form.