unity

American  

[yoo-ni-tee] / ˈju nɪ ti /

noun

• unities
  plural

1. the state of being one; oneness.

   Synonyms:

   individuality, singularity, singleness

   Antonyms:

   variety, diversity

2. a whole or totality as combining all its parts into one.

3. the state or fact of being united or combined into one, as of the parts of a whole; unification.

4. absence of diversity; unvaried or uniform character.

5. oneness of mind, feeling, etc., as among a number of persons; concord, harmony, or agreement.

   Synonyms:

   unison, concert

6. Mathematics.

   1. the number one; a quantity regarded as one.

   2. identity.

7. (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.

8. 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.

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unity British  

/ ˈjuːnɪtɪ /

noun

1. the state or quality of being one; oneness

2. the act, state, or quality of forming a whole from separate parts

3. something whole or complete that is composed of separate parts

4. mutual agreement; harmony or concord

   the participants were no longer in unity

5. uniformity or constancy

   unity of purpose

6. maths

   1. the number or numeral one

   2. a quantity assuming the value of one

      the area of the triangle was regarded as unity

   3. the element of a set producing no change in a number following multiplication

7. the arrangement of the elements in a work of art in accordance with a single overall design or purpose

8. 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)

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Synonym Usage

See union.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonunity
  noun
• self-unity
  noun
• superunity
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• unities
  plural

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

unity unities

"When unity is not so strong... the fear is that an outside threat can knock you down."

From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026

For many years, we have tried to preserve family unity by agreeing as a family not to discuss politics, because we knew those conversations could become divisive.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026

El-Sayed, who called Haley “the least capable candidate in America” in the race’s final days, has since praised her at a unity rally the two held together.

From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2026

Lennon made a plea for unity but said the party had to change, saying the "public don't believe us when we say we are Scottish Labour".

From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026

He didn’t give us a speech about team unity or anything.

From "Here to Stay" by Sara Farizan

There are unities here, to be sure; but there are also essential differences, in scale, in wealth, in material comforts and in the subtleties of emphasis on what makes a house a home.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 8, 2021

They gave you, rather, a strong sense that there are obscure or even invisible unities that powerfully structure the reality we perceive.

From New York Times ● Jul. 10, 2020

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

British critics in the nineteenth century followed suit, celebrating Shakespeare’s capacious characters and poetic imagination instead of worrying whether his plots fit Aristotelian unities or if his style matched Augustan decorum.

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 6, 2015

In this sense we hear of moral feelings, of religious feelings, as if they were absolute unities.

From Human, All Too Human A Book for Free Spirits by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Related Words

• agreement
• consensus
• harmony
• identity
• integrity
• peace
• solidarity
• unanimity
• unification