Etymologically
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singular

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈsɪŋ.ɡjə.lɚ/, /ˈsɪŋ.ɡjʊ.lə/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English singuler, also syngulere,[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French singuler (“personal, particular; single in number”) (modern singulier), or taken directly from singulāris (“single, solitary, one at a time; remarkable”),[2][5][3] which is formed on singulus (“one, one to each, separate”), the source of single.[2][6][7][8] The Middle English spelling ending in -er was replaced by the Latin-shaped singular only in the 17th century.[4][5][8] Barnhart thinks the English word was shaped partly by the earlier noun singularity.[3] Weekley notes that the Old French form also gave sanglier (“wild boar”), originally the animal that lives alone.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Living alone or apart from the herd: about 1340, in Richard Rolle's Psalter;[5][3] Barnhart's first senses are "alone, unique, special, unsurpassed".[3][2] The Shorter Oxford notes that this first sense was used in early Bible translations of an animal that lives and feeds alone.[10]

Semantic evolution

From "alone" the word soon meant "one only, single" (1377, in Langland).[5] The grammatical sense, denoting one person or thing, appears before 1387 in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon, and the noun "the singular number" also first appears in Trevisa's works.[3][5] The sense "remarkably good, unusual, rare" dates from about 1400,[2] and both this and the grammatical use had already developed in Latin.[8][2] The meaning "out of the ordinary, somewhat strange" is recorded by the 1680s,[2] and Hoad dates "not customary, peculiar" to the 17th century.[4] Older senses such as "private, holding no office" (Chaucer, about 1386) and "exclusive, sole" fell out of use in the 16th and 17th centuries.[5] Johnson (1755) gave first the logical sense, "single; not complex", then the grammatical one.[11] Technical uses followed in logic (1653) and mathematics (before 1832).[5] In East Anglian dialect a singular house or farm was a lone one.[12]

Timeline

  • c. 1340 – living alone, apart from others.[5][3]
  • 1377 – one only, single.[5]
  • c. 1378 – noun, a particular thing.[3]
  • before 1387 – (grammar) denoting one person or thing.[3][5]
  • c. 1400 – remarkable, exceptional.[2]
  • a1555 – the only one of its kind, unique.[5]
  • 1653 – (logic) applying to one individual.[5]
  • 1680s – strange, eccentric.[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Remarkable or exceptional; extraordinary: It was a singular achievement for so young a team.
  2. Unusual or odd; strange.
  3. Unique; being the only one of its kind.
  4. (grammar) Of a word or form: referring to one person or thing, not more; opposed to plural.
  5. (logic) Referring to a specific individual rather than to a class.
  6. (mathematics) Of a matrix: having no inverse.

Noun

  1. (grammar) The singular number, or a word in that form: The singular of 'mice' is 'mouse'.

Word family

  • singularly
  • singularness
  • supersingular
  • unsingular
  • nonsingular
  • singularity
  • singularize

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  12. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)