singular
- 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.
- Obsolete. private.
- Obsolete. single.
- the singular number.
- a form in the singular.
Origin of singular
Synonyms for singular
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.comAntonyms for singular
Examples from the Web for singularly
Contemporary Examples of singularly
Today that singularly revered profession is actually many jobs rolled into one.
The first photos from the far side of the Moon are singularly unimpressive to modern eyes.
This was set aside for the moment, now that a man with a knife had committed something so singularly horrific.
New York Times Book critic Eliot Fremont-Smith agreed in his review, calling Barbie, “singularly offensive.”
Professional sports has a singularly unheroic and uninspiring precedent for treating those with a medical problem.
Historical Examples of singularly
But one remark was at once singularly philosophical and practical.
At last Dixon had been singularly fortunate in the matter of jockeys.
ThoroughbredsW. A. Fraser
The other eye, as if to make up, was singularly, repellently intelligent.
It Happened in EgyptC. N. Williamson
To this young nobleman Lord Vargrave was singularly attentive.
Alice, or The Mysteries, CompleteEdward Bulwer-Lytton
At last, Csar hit on a compromise which seemed to him a singularly happy one.
Hetty's Strange HistoryAnonymous
singular
- remarkable; exceptional; extraordinarya singular feat
- unusual; odda singular character
- unique
- denoting a word or an inflected form of a word indicating that not more than one referent is being referred to or described
- logic of or referring to a specific thing or person as opposed to something general
- grammar
- the singular number
- a singular form of a word
Word Origin for singular
Word Origin and History for singularly
singular
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.