single
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: agriculture
ball-games
baseball
biology
botany
broadcasting
business
computing
cricket
dominoes
engineering
entertainment
film
football
games
hobbies
lifestyle
mathematics
media
music
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
rail-transport
railways
sciences
sports
television
tennis
transport
Etymology: From Middle English single, sengle, from Old French sengle, saingle, sangle, from Latin singulus, a diminutive derived from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one”). Akin to Latin simplex (“simple”). See simple, and compare singular.
Inflected forms:
form: singles
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: singles
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: singling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: singled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: singled
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Not accompanied by anything else; one in number.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: Can you give me a single reason not to leave right now?
The vase contained a single long-stemmed rose.
The single-imaging optic of the mammalian eye offers some distinct visual advantages. Such lenses can take in photons from a wide range of angles, increasing light sensitivity. They also have high spatial resolution, resolving incoming images in minute detail. It’s therefore not surprising that most cameras mimic this arrangement.
gloss: Not divided in parts.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: The potatoes left the spoon and landed in a single big lump on the plate.
gloss: Designed for the use of only one.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: a single room
gloss: Performed by one person, or one on each side.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: a single combat
These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant, […] / Who now defies thee thrice to single fight.
gloss: Not married, and (in modern times) not dating or without a significant other.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: Forms often ask if a person is single, married, divorced, or widowed. In this context, a person who is dating someone but who has never married puts "single".
Josh put down that he was a single male on the dating website.
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage.
But earthlier happy is the rose distilled
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
Single chose to live, and shunned to wed.
Now I live a single life and I find it's another world / I'm not even the same, I'm a different girl / Yesterday I was somebody's baby / Now today I'm a woman on my own
gloss: Having only one rank or row of petals.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
gloss: Simple and honest; sincere, without deceit.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
obsolete
examples: Therefore, when thyne eye is single: then is all thy boddy full off light. Butt if thyne eye be evyll: then shall all thy body be full of darknes?
I speak it with a single heart.
gloss: Uncompounded; pure; unmixed.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: simple ideas are opposed to complex , and single ideas to compound.
The most that is required is, that the passage of Scripture, selected as the foundation of the sacred oration, should, like the oration itself, be single, full, and unsuperfluous in its character.
gloss: Simple; foolish; weak; silly.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
obsolete
examples: He utters such single matter in so infantly a voice.
gloss: A 45 RPM vinyl record with one song on side A and one on side B.
pos: noun
gloss: A popular song released and sold (on any format) nominally on its own though usually having at least one extra track.
pos: noun
examples: The Offspring released four singles from their most recent album.
gloss: One who is not married or does not have a romantic partner.
pos: noun
examples: He went to the party, hoping to meet some friendly singles there.
gloss: A score of one run.
pos: noun
examples: He refused to take a single as the ball was dropped by his opponent's best fielder.
gloss: A hit in baseball where the batter advances to first base.
pos: noun
gloss: A tile that has a different value (i.e. number of pips) at each end.
pos: noun
gloss: A bill valued at $1.
pos: noun
tags: US
informal
examples: I don't have any singles, so you'll have to make change.
She looked in her purse, found a ten and a single, gave him the ten. ‘I'll spend it on booze,’ he said.
gloss: A one-way ticket.
pos: noun
tags: UK
examples: ‘I want to know, Mr Stone, if, in the course of the day, you have issued any tickets to a person dressed in Arab costume?’
His reply was prompt.
‘I have — by the last train, the 7.25, — three singles.’
gloss: A score of one point, awarded when a kicked ball is dead within the non-kicking team's end zone or has exited that end zone.
pos: noun
tags: Canadian
gloss: A game with one player on each side, as in tennis.
pos: noun
tags: in-plural
examples: After tea, Mrs. Inglethorp went to lie down to rest before her efforts in the evening and I challenged Mary Cavendish to a single at tennis.
gloss: One of the reeled filaments of silk, twisted without doubling to give them firmness.
pos: noun
gloss: A handful of gleaned grain.
pos: noun
tags: Scotland
UK
dialectal
gloss: A floating-point number having half the precision of a double-precision value.
pos: noun
examples: If you want to be a scientist or an engineer, learn to say “no” to singles and floats.
gloss: A shot of only one character.
pos: noun
examples: But if the same scene is shot in singles (or “over-the-shoulder” shots where one of the actors is only a lumpy shoulder in the foreground), the editor and the director can almost redirect the scene on film.
gloss: A single cigarette.
pos: noun
gloss: Synonym of single-driver.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: A few such examples have been preserved, as is well known, such as one of the Stirling 8-ft. singles of the late Great Northern Railway, the Great Western 4-4-0 City of Truro, ex-Caledonian single-driver No. 123, the Brighton 0-4-2 Gladstone, and others.
gloss: To get a hit that advances the batter exactly one base.
pos: verb
examples: Pedro singled in the bottom of the eighth inning, which, if converted to a run, would put the team back into contention.
gloss: To thin out.
pos: verb
examples: Paul went joyfully, and spent the afternoon helping to hoe or to single turnips with his friend.
The seeds did not germinate in many parts of a row until rains in end of June and thunderplumps in first week of July brought them up later in patches, so that no second sowing was necessary, but singling was done by stages.
gloss: To take the irregular gait called singlefoot.
pos: verb
examples: Many very fleet horses, when overdriven, adopt a disagreeable gait, which seems to be a cross between a pace and a trot, in which the two legs of one side are raised almost but not quite, simultaneously. Such horses are said to single, or to be single-footed.
gloss: To sequester; to withdraw; to retire.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
intransitive
examples: an agent singling itself from consorts
gloss: To take alone, or one by one; to single out.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
intransitive
examples: men […] commendable when they are singled
gloss: To reduce (a railway) to single track.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: In the east of Yorkshire, Mr. A. M. Ross reports the belief of local railwaymen that the N.E.R. plans to single the York-Beverley line, leaving an adequate provision of passing loops, and to operate it by C.T.C. from York; […]
The Henley branch, recently singled and fully track-circuited, is worked by acceptance lever between Twyford and Shiplake cabins.
Sadly, it's not the quickest route as much of it has been singled, but it still boasts some attractive stations as well as an active Community Rail Partnership, one of the first in the country.
Related words: singular
singularity
singularly
baseball
cricket
single
solo
double
twofold
triple
threefold
quadruple
fourfold
quintuple
pentuple
fivefold
loner
singleton
monad
pair
couple
twosome
duo
dyad
trio
threesome
triad
troika
foursome
quartet
tetrad
fivesome
quintet
pentad
only one
singlet
twin
one of two
doublet
triplet
one of three
quadruplet
one of four
quintuplet
pentuplet
one of five
sextuple
hextuple
sixfold
septuple
heptuple
sevenfold
octuple
eightfold
ninefold
nonuple
tenfold
decuple
sixsome
sextet
hexad
sevensome
septet
heptad
eightsome
octet
octad
ninesome
nonet
ennead
tensome
decet
decad
sextuplet
hextuplet
one of six
one of seven
septuplet
heptuplet
octuplet
one of eight
one of nine
nonuplet
one of ten
decuplet
elevenfold
undecuple
hendecuple
twelvefold
duodecuple
thirteenfold
tredecuple
a hundredfold
centuple
multiple
elevensome
twelvesome
thirteensome
hundredsome
one of eleven
undecuplet
hendecuplet
one of twelve
duodecuplet
one of thirteen
tredecuplet
one of a hundred
centuplet
one of many
multiplet
Derived words: a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
are you single
at a single stroke
better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness
cheese single
digital single-lens reflex
digital single-lens reflex camera
every single
every single time
I'm single
nonsingle
permasingle
semi-single
single-acting
single action
single and ready to mingle
single angle quote
single annulus
single as a dollar bill
single as a Pringle
single bed
single-blind
single bond
single-breasted
single-cell
single-celled
single-celling
single-chain
single child
single-click
single combat
single-course
single cream
single crochet
single-crop
single cross
single crystal
single currency
single curve
single data rate
single-decker
single-digit salute
single dispatch
singledom
single-driver
single-edged
single-elimination
single-elimination tournament
single entendre
single entry
single-entry
single-eyed
single eyelid
single father
single-figure
single file
single-fingered salute
single-first cousin
single flower
single-fold
singlefold
single-foot
single Gloucester
single grave
single-hand
single-handed
single-handedly
single-handedness
single-heading
single-hearted
singlehearted
single-heartedly
single-heartedness
singlehood
single-horse
single-incision laparoscopic surgery
singleism
single-issue
single jack
single justice procedure
single knot
single leaf
singleleaf
single-lens reflex
single lens reflex
single life
single-line
single-line whip
singlely
single malt
single malt scotch
single malt whisky
single-manned
single-manning
single market
single-masted
singleminded
single-minded
single-mindedly
single-mindedness
single-molecule magnet
single money
single mother
singleness
single-O
single-o
single option
single order picking
single-organismic
single-page application
single pane of glass
single parent
single-parent family
single parenting
single-payer
single-phase
single-phasing
single-platform
single-player
singleplayer
singleplex
single-ply membrane
single-ply roof
single pneumonia
single-point
single point of failure
single-point urban interchange
single precision
single procession
single prop
single quote
singler
single reed
single-reed
single responsibility principle
single scull
single-serve
single-serving site
single-sex
single shell
single-shot
single shot
single-sideband modulation
single-sided
single sourcing
single-space
single-spaced
single-spacing
single-speed bicycle
single standard
single star system
single-step
singlestick
single stitch
single story
single-strand binding protein
single-stranded
single-stream
single-striped grass mouse
single supplement
singlet
singletail
single-tasking
single tax
single-taxism
single ticket
single time
singleton
singletrack
single-track
single track
single-tracking
single transferable vote
single-tree
single tree
singletree
single union agreement
single up
single-use
single-user
single-valued
single-valued function
single-wheeler
single wicket
single wicket cricket
single-wide
single-word
singleworld
single yellow line
singlism
singlist
singly
unsingle
bingle
cassingle
CD single
lead single
maxi single
ringle
singles bar
split single
Texas League single
triple single
vingle
single out
unsingled
Translations: