unity
Americannoun
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unities
plural
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the state of being one; oneness.
- Synonyms:
- individuality, singularity, singleness
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a whole or totality as combining all its parts into one.
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the state or fact of being united or combined into one, as of the parts of a whole; unification.
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absence of diversity; unvaried or uniform character.
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oneness of mind, feeling, etc., as among a number of persons; concord, harmony, or agreement.
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Mathematics.
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the number one; a quantity regarded as one.
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(in literature and art) a relation of all the parts or elements of a work constituting a harmonious whole and producing a single general effect.
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one of the three principles of dramatic structure the three unities derived from Aristotelian aesthetics and formalized in the neoclassic canon in which a play is required to represent action as taking place in one day unity of time, as occurring within one place unity of place, and as having a single plot with a beginning, middle, and end unity of action.
noun
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the state or quality of being one; oneness
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the act, state, or quality of forming a whole from separate parts
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something whole or complete that is composed of separate parts
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mutual agreement; harmony or concord
the participants were no longer in unity
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uniformity or constancy
unity of purpose
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maths
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the number or numeral one
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a quantity assuming the value of one
the area of the triangle was regarded as unity
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the element of a set producing no change in a number following multiplication
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the arrangement of the elements in a work of art in accordance with a single overall design or purpose
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any one of the three principles of dramatic structure deriving from Aristotle's Poetics by which the action of a play should be limited to a single plot (unity of action), a single location (unity of place), and the events of a single day (unity of time)
Synonym Usage
See union.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of unity
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English unite, from Old French, from Latin ūnitās, from ūn(us) one + -itās -ity
Explanation
Unity is being together or at one with someone or something. It's the opposite of being divided. This is a word for togetherness or oneness. When the north won the Civil War, it assured the unity of the United States. Sports teams wear uniforms to show unity, and their fans wear team colors for the same reason. When a bunch of people act as one and are on the same page, they're displaying unity. When people are bickering and disorganized, there's no unity. In any group or cause, unity can be hard to find and maintain.
Vocabulary lists containing unity
Power Prefix: uni-
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Joyous Kwanzaa! Vocabulary Worth Celebrating
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Four Power Prefixes: anti-, con-, inter-, and uni-.
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“My testimony through my art has always been finding unity, solidarity, power and connection with other people,” she says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
Monday's vote is a personal challenge for Prime Minister Mark Carney, who grew up in Alberta and returned there this week to campaign for national unity.
From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026
The challenge for Europe is to sustain its current show of unity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
Hearings “tend to be risky events when direct earnings-related information comes out or there is evidence of unity and possible government action,” the Evercore team said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 3, 2026
“For the sake of the Garden. The last thing they’d ever expect is some unity around here. A’ight?”
From "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas
Tightly constructed, it observes the classical unities of time, place and action.
From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2019
They said, "Don’t worry about the facts, don’t worry about logic, think instead in terms of mystical unities and direct connections between the mystical leader and the people."
From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2018
Like so many Golden Age mysteries, the original novel is essentially a closet drama, one that closely observes the theatrical unities of place, time and action.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 8, 2017
They are creators of the image who risk the image, creators of experience who provoke the very notion of experience, creators of worlds who fill them with divergences rather than unities, questions rather than verities.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 11, 2014
Dramatic unities; laws of versification; ecclesiastical systems; scholastic doctrines.
From The Letters of William James, Vol. II by William James
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