unique

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French unique.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /juːˈniːk/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːk

Adjective

unique (comparative uniquer or more unique, superlative uniquest or most unique)

1. (not comparable) Being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched.

   Every person has a unique life, therefore every person has a unique journey.

   • 1920, Robert W. Lawson, Relativity: The Special and General Theory, translation of original by Albert Einstein:

     Perhaps the reader will wonder why we have placed our " beings " on a sphere rather than on another closed surface. But this choice has its justification in the fact that, of all closed surfaces, the sphere is unique in possessing the property that all points on it are equivalent.

   • 1941, Allen v. Walt Disney:

     3. Both were written and published with the same unique chorus structure;
     4. Both compositions were written and published with the same unique harmonic structure;

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess‎^[1]:

     ‘[…] There's every Staffordshire crime-piece ever made in this cabinet, and that's unique. The Van Hoyer Museum in New York hasn't that very rare second version of Maria Marten's Red Barn over there, nor the little Frederick George Manning—he was the criminal Dickens saw hanged on the roof of the gaol in Horsemonger Lane, by the way—’

   • 1978, Jimmy Carter, Proclamation 4611:

     Admiralty Island contains unique resources of scientific interest which need protection to assure continued opportunities for study.

   • 1998, Paul M. Edwards, The Korean War: An Annotated Bibliography‎^[2], Greenwood Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 114:

     A very interesting history of United Nations at war in Korea, done in an unique question and answer style.

   • 2002, The American Practical Navigator:

     GPS assigns a unique C/A code and a unique P code to each satellite.

   • 2010, Casey Anderson, The Story of Brutus‎^[3], New York: Pegasus Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 173:

     Brutus gets excited when we pull his trailer up. He knows he is going somewhere and that he is going to have an unique experience that will leave him stimulated and fulfilled.

   • 2010, Larry Hochman, The Relationship Revolution‎^[4], John Wiley and Sons, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 109:

     To this day, ‘Winning for Customers’ still stands out as an unique example of a company deciding that, if customer loyalty was to become a reality, everyone had to own it: pilots, caterers, engineers, reservationists, cabin crew, cleaners, drivers — every single person had to understand the economics of customer loyalty and their individual role in making it happen.

   Synonyms: one of a kind, sui generis, singular

2. Of a feature, such that only one holder has it.
3. Particular, characteristic.
   • 1999, Harry J. Cargas, Problems Unique to the Holocaust‎^[5]:
4. (proscribed) Of a rare quality, unusual.
   • 1950, J.D. Salinger, For Esmé—With Love and Squalor:

     And as I look back, it seems to me that we were fairly unique, the sixty of us, in that there wasn’t one good mixer in the bunch.

Usage notes

• The comparative and superlative forms uniquer or more unique and uniquest or most unique, as well as the use of unique with modifiers as in fairly unique and very unique, are grammatically proscribed, with the reasoning that either something is unique or it is not. In such instances, "distinctive" is what is meant.

Derived terms

• uniq fruit
• uniquely
• uniqueness
• uniquify
• uniquity

Related terms

• unicity
• one-of-a-kind
• inimitable

Translations

one of a kind

• Abkhaz: please add this translation if you can
• Arabic: فَرِيد (ar) (farīd), فَذّ (faḏḏ), وَحِيد (waḥīd)
• Armenian: եզակի (hy) (ezaki), ունիկալ (hy) (unikal)
• Avar: please add this translation if you can
• Azerbaijani: unikal
• Belarusian: уніка́льны (unikálʹny), адзі́ны (adzíny), непаўто́рны (njepaŭtórny)
• Bulgarian: уника́лен (bg) (unikálen), неповтори́м (bg) (nepovtorím), еди́нствен (bg) (edínstven)
• Catalan: únic (ca)
• Chechen: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 獨一無二／独一无二 (zh) (dúyīwú'èr), 独一无二 (zh) (dúyīwú'èr), 唯一 (zh) (wéiyī), 特異／特异 (zh) (tèyì)

  Min Nan: 特異／特异 (ti̍k-ī)

• Czech: jedinečný (cs), unikátní (cs)
• Danish: unik, enestående
• Dutch: uniek (nl)
• Esperanto: unika, ununura
• Estonian: unikaalne, ainulaadne
• Finnish: ainutlaatuinen (fi)
• French: unique (fr)
• Galician: único (gl) m
• Georgian: უნიკალური (uniḳaluri), განუმეორებელი (ganumeorebeli), ერთადერთი (ertaderti), უბადლო (ubadlo), შეუდარებელი (šeudarebeli), უბადლო (ubadlo)
• German: einzigartig (de), unikal (de), einzig (de)
• Greek: μοναδικός (el) (monadikós)

  Ancient: μοναχός (monakhós)

• Hungarian: egyedi (hu), egyedülálló (hu)
• Ido: unika (io)
• Indonesian: unik (id)
• Irish: uathúil
• Italian: unico (it), peculiare (it), speciale (it)
• Japanese: 唯一 (ja) (yuiitsu), 唯一無二 (ja) (yuiitsumuni), (+ -な -na) ユニーク (yunīku)
• Kazakh: бірегей (bıregei)
• Khmer: please add this translation if you can
• Korean: 유일무이(唯一無二)하다 (yuilmu'ihada), 유일(唯一)하다 (ko) (yuilhada), 독특(獨特)하다 (ko) (dokteukhada), (odd) 희한(稀罕)하다 (ko) (huihanhada)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Latin: ūnicus (la)
• Macedonian: уникатен (unikaten)
• Maori: ahurei, tūhāhā
• Mongolian: please add this translation if you can
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: unik

• Old English: ænlic, anfeald, anfealdlic, an
• Ossetian: please add this translation if you can
• Persian: یکتا (fa) (yektâ), بی‌مانند (bi-mânand) (bookish), منحصربفرد (fa) (monhaserbefard)
• Polish: unikalny (pl), niepowtarzalny (pl), unikatowy (pl), wyjątkowy (pl)
• Portuguese: único (pt)
• Romanian: unic (ro)
• Russian: уника́льный (ru) (unikálʹnyj), исключи́тельный (ru) (isključítelʹnyj), еди́нственный (ru) (jedínstvennyj), неповтори́мый (ru) (nepovtorímyj)
• Scottish Gaelic: àraidh, air leth
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: једѝнствен

  Roman: jedìnstven (sh)

• Sindhi: منفرد (mufarid)
• Slovak: jedinečný, unikátny (sk)
• Slovene: edinstven
• Spanish: único (es), señero (es)
• Swedish: unik (sv), enastående (sv)
• Tajik: беҳамто (tg) (behamto), ягона (tg) (yagona), беназир (tg) (benazir), нодир (nodir)
• Thai: please add this translation if you can
• Tibetan: please add this translation if you can
• Turkish: benzersiz (tr), eşsiz (tr), özgün (tr), ünik (tr)
• Tuvan: please add this translation if you can
• Ukrainian: уніка́льний (unikálʹnyj), єди́ний (jedýnyj), неповто́рний (nepovtórnyj)
• Uzbek: noyob (uz), nodir (uz)
• Vietnamese: duy nhất (vi), độc nhất (vi), độc nhất vô nhị (vi), có một không hai
• Welsh: unigryw (cy)

(of a feature)

• Bulgarian: уникален (bg) (unikalen)
• Italian: singolare (it), speciale (it), originale (it)
• Persian: تک (fa) (tak)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Noun

unique (plural uniques)

1. A thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled; one of a kind.
   • a. 1859, Thomas De Quincey, Language

     The phoenix, the unique of birds.

Translations

one of a kind — see one of a kind

Further reading

• “unique”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “unique”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “unique” in Roget's Thesaurus, T. Y. Crowell Co., 1911.

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French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin ūnicus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /y.nik/

• audio:

  (file)

Adjective

unique (plural uniques)

1. unique
2. only

Derived terms

• à sens unique
• enfant unique
• fille unique
• fils unique
• monnaie unique
• unicité
• unique en son genre
• uniquement

 

Related terms

• un

Descendants

• → Danish: unik
• → Dutch: uniek
• → English: unique
• → Norwegian Bokmål: unik
• → Norwegian Nynorsk: unik
• → Swedish: unik
• → Turkish: ünik

Further reading

• “unique”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.