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Abstract Strain rate has drawn great research attention in the area of material mechanics. However, thus far the effects of strain rate on the breakage characteristics of rocks or mineral particles were seldom studied. The applied strain rate is one of the key factors causing the variation in breakage environment, and hence the understanding of strain rate's effect on particle breakage is important to the development of a generic breakage model that isolates the rock properties from the breakage environment. This study systematically investigated the characteristics of single particle breakage at different strain rates. The rock samples from four narrow size fractions were used for carrying out impact and compression tests at variable energy input levels. The energy-size reduction relationships for impact and compression breakage were developed, respectively, and the appearance functions for these two breakage mechanisms were also developed based on previous and current work. The results suggest that the sample breaks easier at lower strain rates and the significance of the particle size effect strongly depends on the strain rate. It is demonstrated that the strain rate has an important influence on the progeny size distribution, but the significance of this influence reduces as the energy input increases. It is also found that the sample breaks with a higher energy efficiency at lower strain rates. The strain rate may affect the initiation and propagation of the cracks originate from small flaws and hence results in the difference in the breakage characteristics. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • The sampled ore breaks easier and more energy efficiently at low strain rates • The significance of particle size effect strongly depends on strain rate • Strain rate has a considerable influence on the progeny size distribution • Strain rate is likely to affect the propagation of cracks from small flaws [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]