nonpareil
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: biology
cooking
food
lifestyle
media
natural-sciences
publishing
typography
Etymology: From Late Middle English non-parail (“unparalleled, nonpareil”) [and other forms], from Middle French nonpareille, nonpareil (“unparalleled”) (obsolete), from non- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + pareil (“alike, like, same”). Pareil is derived from Old French pareil, from Late Latin pāriculus (“equal; like; of a number: even”), from Latin pār (“equal; like; of a number: even; suitable”) + -culus (a variant of -ulus (suffix forming diminutives)). Doublet of umpire.
Noun sense 4 (size of type standardized at 6-point) is usually taken to derive from the attractive type cut by the brothers Giovanni and Gregorio De Gregori (fl. 1482–1503 and 1496–1527 respectively) for their 1498 edition of the divine offices in Venice; it was for a long time the smallest-sized type in use.
Inflected forms:
form: more nonpareil
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most nonpareil
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: non-pareil
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: nonpareils
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: non-pareil
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: nonparella
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: nonpareillo
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Unequalled, unrivalled; unique.
pos: adj
examples: He informed the clerk that he would remain three or four days, inquired concerning the sailing of European steamships, and sank into the blissful inanition of the nonpareil hotel with the contented air of a traveller in his favorite inn.
A veritable artist, possessed of a deftness nonpareil with cotton swab and evacuation-hypo, the medical attaché is known among the shrinking upper classes of petro-Arab nations as the DeBakey of maxillofacial yeast […]
[…]the series stars Samantha Morton as Margaret Wells, a London brothel owner; Ms. Brown Findlay as Charlotte, her older daughter and the city’s courtesan nonpareil; […]
gloss: A person or thing that has no equal; a paragon.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: My lord and master loves you. O, such love / Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd / The nonpareil of beauty!
King John of France, once prisoner in England, came […] to see the Countess of Salisbury, the nonpareil of those times, and his dear mistress.
(a wren) crept or crawled, just like a true tree-creeper. I was, as I say, quite close, and watched it most attentively. It certainly—as far as good looking can settle it—did not assist itself with the wings. They remained close against the sides, or, if they moved at all, it was imperceptible to my eyes (which, by the way, are non-pareils).
gloss: The blue underwing or Clifden nonpareil (Catocala fraxini), a species of moth distributed across the Palearctic; also (obsolete) any of a number of moths of other species.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: In full nonpareil parrot: an eastern rosella, of species Platycercus eximius, a rosella (parrot) native to southeastern Australia.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
archaic
countable
uncountable
gloss: A painted bunting (Passerina ciris), a brightly-coloured finch native to North America.
pos: noun
tags: US
countable
uncountable
gloss: In full nonpareil apple: an apple tasting both sweet and tart which ripens very late in the season; also, the tree producing this fruit.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
countable
uncountable
gloss: Any of various types of small sweets.
pos: noun
tags: US
archaic
countable
uncountable
gloss: A small pellet of white or coloured sugar used as decoration on baked goods and candy.
pos: noun
tags: US
broadly
countable
dated
uncountable
gloss: A small, flat chocolate drop covered with such pellets of sugar, similar to a comfit.
pos: noun
tags: US
broadly
countable
uncountable
gloss: A caper (“pickled edible flower bud”) of the smallest size.
pos: noun
tags: US
broadly
countable
uncountable
gloss: A size of type between ruby and emerald (or, in the United States, between agate and minion), standardized as 6-point; (countable) a slug of this size.
pos: noun
tags: historical
uncountable
examples: I believe that letters which are less than a millimetre and a half (1/17 inch) high, will finally prove injurious to the eye. How little attention has hitherto been paid to this important subject is exemplified in the fact that even oculistic journals and books frequently contain nonpareil, or letters only a millimetre (1/25 inch) high.
A Handbook of Astronomy (cover, brown leather, detached, 5 plates, antique letterpress long primer, author’s footnotes nonpareil, marginal clues brevier, captions small pica).
Translations: