sui generis
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of sui generis
Latin, literally: of its own kind
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.
Once considered the product of two distinct artists, “Boy With a Basket of Fruit” speaks to the intensity of Caravaggio’s spectacular, sui generis vision of what Italian naturalism would become in his hands.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 11, 2026
“Sèvres Extraordinaire!” approaches its subject—pioneering, astonishing ceramic confections that are neither purely functional nor purely decorative but sui generis art, or “sculpture”—in the broadest sense.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 1, 2025
To them, even after eight years of experience, the president is some type of sui generis figure, an aberration in American politics and culture.
From Salon • Aug. 30, 2025
Parker was often abrasive, but Crowther considers Parker empathetically, as a sui generis who resisted becoming a cog in the filmmaking machinery.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 3, 2024
She thought of the sui generis Hixby’s guidebook, the fictitious Judge Quinzy, and the mysterious danger Miss Mortimer had warned her about.
From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
