single
Contents
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English single, sengle, from Old French sengle, saingle, sangle, from Latin singulus, a diminutive derived from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one”). Akin to Latin simplex (“simple”). See simple, and compare singular.
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
single (not comparable)
- Not accompanied by anything else; one in number.
-
2013 July-August, Fenella Saunders, “Tiny Lenses See the Big Picture”, in American Scientist:
- The single-imaging optic of the mammalian eye offers some distinct visual advantages. Such lenses can take in photons from a wide range of angles, increasing light sensitivity. They also have high spatial resolution, resolving incoming images in minute detail. It’s therefore not surprising that most cameras mimic this arrangement.
-
Can you give me a single reason not to leave right now? The vase contained a single long-stemmed rose.
-
- Not divided in parts.
-
The potatoes left the spoon and landed in a single big lump on the plate.
-
- Designed for the use of only one.
-
a single room
-
- Performed by one person, or one on each side.
- a single combat
- Milton
- These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant, […] / Who now defies thee thrice to single fight.
- Not married or (in modern times) not involved in a romantic relationship without being married or not dating anyone exclusively.
-
Forms often ask if a person is single, married, divorced, or widowed. In this context, a person who is dating someone but who has never married puts "single".
-
Josh put down that he was a single male on the dating website.
- Shakespeare
- Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
- Dryden
- Single chose to live, and shunned to wed.
-
- (botany) Having only one rank or row of petals.
- (obsolete) Simple and honest; sincere, without deceit.
- 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Luke XI:
- Therefore, when thyne eye is single: then is all thy boddy full off light. Butt if thyne eye be evyll: then shall all thy body be full of darknes?
- Shakespeare
- I speak it with a single heart.
- 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Luke XI:
- Uncompounded; pure; unmixed.
- I. Watts
- Simple ideas are opposed to complex, and single to compound.
- 1867, William Greenough Thayer Shedd, Homiletics, and Pastoral Theology (page 166)
- The most that is required is, that the passage of Scripture, selected as the foundation of the sacred oration, should, like the oration itself, be single, full, and unsuperfluous in its character.
- I. Watts
- (obsolete) Simple; foolish; weak; silly.
- Beaumont and Fletcher
- He utters such single matter in so infantly a voice.
- Beaumont and Fletcher
Synonyms[edit]
- (not accompanied by anything else): lone, sole
- (not divided in parts): unbroken, undivided, uniform
- (not married): unmarried, available
Antonyms[edit]
- (not married): divorced, married, widowed, taken
- (not single, in a relationship, but with separate households): living apart together, LAT
Derived terms[edit]
- single-acting
- single bed
- single-blind/single blind
- single bond
- single-cell
- single-celled
- single-click
- single combat
- single cream
- single crochet
- single cross
- single crystal
- single currency
- single data rate
- single-decker
- singledom
- single-elimination
- single entry
- single-eyed
- single file
- single flower
- single-fold
- single-foot
- single grave
- single-handed
- single-handedly
- single-hearted
- singlehood
- single-horse
- single-issue
- single leaf
- single-line
- single knot
- single malt
- single market
- single-minded
- single money
- single mother
- singleness
- single-o
- single option
- single parent
- single-phase
- single-phasing
- singleplayer
- single-ply roof
- single pneumonia
- single-point
- single-point urban interchange
- single point of failure
- single precision
- single prop
- single quote
- singler
- single scull
- single-sex
- single shell
- single shot
- single-shot
- single sourcing
- single-space
- single-spaced
- single-spacing
- single standard
- single star system
- singlestick
- single stitch
- single supplement
- singlet
- single tax
- singleton
- single track
- single union agreement
- single-valued
- single-wide
- single-word
- singly
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Noun[edit]
single (plural singles)
- (music) A 45 RPM vinyl record with one song on side A and one on side B.
- (music) A popular song released and sold (on any format) nominally on its own though usually having at least one extra track.
- The Offspring released four singles from their most recent album.
- One who is not married.
- He went to the party, hoping to meet some friendly singles there.
- (cricket) A score of one run.
- (baseball) A hit in baseball where the batter advances to first base.
- (dominoes) A tile that has a different value (i.e. number of pips) at each end.
- A bill valued at $1.
- I don't have any singles, so you'll have to make change.
- (Britain) A one-way ticket.
- (Canadian football) A score of one point, awarded when a kicked ball is dead within the non-kicking team's end zone or has exited that end zone. Officially known in the rules as a rouge.
- (tennis, chiefly in the plural) A game with one player on each side, as in tennis.
- One of the reeled filaments of silk, twisted without doubling to give them firmness.
- (Britain, Scotland, dialect) A handful of gleaned grain.
Antonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
|
|
|
|
|
See also[edit]
Verb[edit]
single (third-person singular simple present singles, present participle singling, simple past and past participle singled)
- To identify or select one member of a group from the others; generally used with out, either to single out or to single (something) out.
- Eddie singled out his favorite marble from the bag.
- Yvonne always wondered why Ernest had singled her out of the group of giggling girls she hung around with.
- Francis Bacon
- dogs who hereby can single out their master in the dark
- (baseball) To get a hit that advances the batter exactly one base.
- Pedro singled in the bottom of the eighth inning, which, if converted to a run, would put the team back into contention.
- (agriculture) To thin out.
- 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 7
- Paul went joyfully, and spent the afternoon helping to hoe or to single turnips with his friend.
- 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 7
- (of a horse) To take the irregular gait called singlefoot.
- W. S. Clark
- Many very fleet horses, when overdriven, adopt a disagreeable gait, which seems to be a cross between a pace and a trot, in which the two legs of one side are raised almost but not quite, simultaneously. Such horses are said to single, or to be single-footed.
- W. S. Clark
- To sequester; to withdraw; to retire.
- Hooker
- an agent singling itself from consorts
- Hooker
- To take alone, or one by one.
- Hooker
- men […] commendable when they are singled
- Hooker
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
See also[edit]
Coefficient | Noun | Result |
---|---|---|
1 | single | singlet |
2 | double | doublet twin |
3 | triple | triplet |
4 | quadruple | quadruplet |
5 | quintuple pentuple |
quintuplet pentuplet |
6 | sextuple hextuple |
sextuplet hextuplet |
7 | septuple heptuple |
septuplet heptuplet |
8 | octuple | octuplet |
9 | nonuple | nonuplet |
10 | decuple | decuplet |
11 | undecuple hendecuple |
undecuplet hendecuplet |
12 | duodecuple | duodecuplet |
13 | tredecuple | tredecuplet |
100 | centuple | centuplet |
many | multiple | multiplet |
References[edit]
- single in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- “single” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2018.
Anagrams[edit]
Catalan[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Noun[edit]
single m (plural singles)
Finnish[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
single
- single (45 rpm record)
Declension[edit]
Inflection of single (Kotus type 8/nalle, no gradation) | |||
---|---|---|---|
nominative | single | singlet | |
genitive | singlen | singlejen | |
partitive | singleä | singlejä | |
illative | singleen | singleihin | |
singular | plural | ||
nominative | single | singlet | |
accusative | nom. | single | singlet |
gen. | singlen | ||
genitive | singlen | singlejen singleinrare |
|
partitive | singleä | singlejä | |
inessive | singlessä | singleissä | |
elative | singlestä | singleistä | |
illative | singleen | singleihin | |
adessive | singlellä | singleillä | |
ablative | singleltä | singleiltä | |
allative | singlelle | singleille | |
essive | singlenä | singleinä | |
translative | singleksi | singleiksi | |
instructive | — | singlein | |
abessive | singlettä | singleittä | |
comitative | — | singleineen |
See also[edit]
Italian[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Noun[edit]
single m, f (invariable)
Adjective[edit]
single (invariable)
Norwegian Bokmål[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Borrowing from English single and singles.
Noun[edit]
single m (definite singular singlen, indefinite plural singler, definite plural singlene)
Synonyms[edit]
- singelplate (record)
References[edit]
- “single” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Borrowing from English single and singles.
Noun[edit]
single m (definite singular singlen, indefinite plural singlar, definite plural singlane)
Synonyms[edit]
- singelplate (record)
References[edit]
- “single” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
Portuguese[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
single m (plural singles)
Spanish[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Borrowed from English single. Doublet of sendos.
Noun 1[edit]
single m (plural singles)
- single (song released)
Noun 2[edit]
single m, f (plural singles)
- single, single person
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English uncomparable adjectives
- English terms with usage examples
- en:Botany
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Cricket
- en:Baseball
- en:Dominoes
- British English
- en:Canadian football
- en:Tennis
- Scottish English
- English dialectal terms
- English verbs
- en:Agriculture
- English basic words
- en:One
- en:People
- Catalan terms borrowed from English
- Catalan terms derived from English
- Catalan lemmas
- Catalan nouns
- Finnish terms borrowed from English
- Finnish terms derived from English
- Finnish 2-syllable words
- Finnish terms with IPA pronunciation
- Finnish lemmas
- Finnish nouns
- Finnish nalle-type nominals
- Italian terms borrowed from English
- Italian terms derived from English
- Italian lemmas
- Italian nouns
- Italian adjectives
- Norwegian Bokmål terms borrowed from English
- Norwegian Bokmål terms derived from English
- Norwegian Bokmål lemmas
- Norwegian Bokmål nouns
- nb:Music
- nb:Sports
- Norwegian Nynorsk terms borrowed from English
- Norwegian Nynorsk terms derived from English
- Norwegian Nynorsk lemmas
- Norwegian Nynorsk nouns
- nn:Music
- nn:Sports
- Portuguese terms borrowed from English
- Portuguese terms derived from English
- Portuguese terms with IPA pronunciation
- Portuguese lemmas
- Portuguese nouns
- pt:Music
- Spanish terms borrowed from English
- Spanish terms derived from English
- Spanish doublets
- Spanish lemmas
- Spanish nouns