extraordinary; remarkable; exceptional: a singular success.
unusual or strange; odd; different: singular behavior.
being the only one of its kind; distinctive; unique: a singular example.
separate; individual.
Grammar. noting or pertaining to a member of the category of number found in many languages that indicates that a word form has one referent or denotes one person, place, thing, or instance, as English boy and thing, which are singular nouns, or goes, a singular form of the verb go.Compare dual(def 4), plural(def 4).
Logic.
of or relating to something individual, specific, or not general.
(of a proposition) containing no quantifiers, as “Socrates was mortal.”
Mathematics.
of or relating to a linear transformation from a vector space to itself that is not one-to-one.
of or relating to a matrix having a determinant equal to zero.
First recorded in 1300–50;Middle English word from Latin word singulāris. See single, -ar1
Related formssin·gu·lar·ly, adverbsin·gu·lar·ness, nounsu·per·sin·gu·lar, adjectiveun·sin·gu·lar, adjectiveun·sin·gu·lar·ly, adverbun·sin·gu·lar·ness, nounCan be confusedsinglesingular
mid-14c., "alone, apart; being a unit; special, unsurpassed," from Old French singuler "personal particular; distinctive; singular in number" (12c., Modern French singulier) or directly from Latin singularis "single, solitary, one by one, one at a time; peculiar, remarkable," from singulus (see single (adj.)). Meaning "remarkably good, unusual, rare, separated from others (by excellence), uncommon" is from c.1400 in English; this also was a common meaning of Latin singularis.
In nouns, pronouns, and verbs, the grammatical form that refers to only one thing. In the following sentence, the singular words are italicized: “The police officer stops anyone who crosses before the light changes.” (Compareplural; seeagreement.)
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