English
single
see also: Single
Etymology

From Middle English single, sengle, from Old French sengle, saingle, sangle, from Latin singulus, a diminutive derived from Proto-Indo-European *sem-.

Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈsɪŋɡl̩/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈsɪŋɡəl/
Adjective

single (not comparable)

  1. Not accompanied by anything else; one in number.
    Synonyms: lone, sole
    Can you give me a single reason not to leave right now?
    The vase contained a single long-stemmed rose.
  2. Not divided in parts.
    Synonyms: unbroken, undivided, uniform
    The potatoes left the spoon and landed in a single big lump on the plate.
  3. Designed for the use of only one.
    a single room
  4. Performed by one person, or one on each side.
    a single combat
    • 1649, J[ohn] Milton, ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC ↗:
      These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant, […] / Who now defies thee thrice to single fight.
  5. Not married, and (in modern times) not dating or without a significant other.
    Synonyms: unmarried, unpartnered, available
    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.
    • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene i]:
      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.
    • 1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid's Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC ↗:
      Single chose to live, and shunned to wed.
  6. (botany) Having only one rank or row of petals.
  7. (obsolete) Simple and honest; sincere, without deceit.
    • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC ↗, Luke xj:
      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?
    • 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act V, scene iii]:
      I speak it with a single heart.
  8. Uncompounded; pure; unmixed.
    • 1725, Isaac Watts, Logick: Or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, […], 2nd edition, London: […] John Clark and Richard Hett, […], Emanuel Matthews, […], and Richard Ford, […], published 1726, →OCLC ↗:
      simple ideas are opposed to complex , and single ideas to compound.
    • 1867, William Greenough Thayer Shedd, Homiletics, and Pastoral Theology, page 166:
      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.
  9. (obsolete) Simple; foolish; weak; silly.
    • 1616–1618, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Nathan Field, “The Queene of Corinth”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC ↗, Act III, scene i:
      He utters such single matter in so infantly a voice.
Related terms Translations Translations Translations Translations Noun

single (plural singles)

  1. (music) A 45 RPM vinyl record with one song on side A and one on side B.
    Antonyms: album
  2. (music) A popular song released and sold (on any format) nominally on its own though usually having at least one extra track.
    The Offspring released four singles from their most recent album.
  3. One who is not married or does not have a romantic partner.
    Antonyms: married
    He went to the party, hoping to meet some friendly singles there.
  4. (cricket) A score of one run.
  5. (baseball) A hit in baseball where the batter advances to first base.
  6. (dominoes) A tile that has a different value (i.e. number of pips) at each end.
  7. (US, informal) A bill valued at $1.
    I don't have any singles, so you'll have to make change.
    • 1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC ↗, page 94 ↗:
      She looked in her purse, found a ten and a single, gave him the ten. ‘I'll spend it on booze,’ he said.
  8. (UK) A one-way ticket.
    • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:
      ‘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.’
  9. (Canadian football) 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.
    Synonyms: rouge
  10. (tennis, chiefly, in the plural) A game with one player on each side, as in tennis.
  11. One of the reeled filaments of silk, twisted without doubling to give them firmness.
  12. (UK, Scotland, dialect) A handful of gleaned grain.
  13. (computing, programming) A floating-point number having half the precision of a double-precision value.
    Coordinate term: double
    • 2011, Rubin H. Landau, A First Course in Scientific Computing, page 214:
      If you want to be a scientist or an engineer, learn to say “no” to singles and floats.
  14. (film) A shot of only one character.
    • 1990, Jon Boorstin, The Hollywood Eye: What Makes Movies Work, page 94:
      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.
  15. A single cigarette.
  16. (rail, obsolete) Synonym of single-driver.
Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

single (singles, present participle singling; simple past and past participle singled)

  1. (baseball) To get a hit that advances the batter exactly one base.
    Pedro singled in the bottom of the eighth inning, which, if converted to a run, would put the team back into contention.
  2. (agriculture) To thin out.
    • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 7, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC ↗:
      Paul went joyfully, and spent the afternoon helping to hoe or to single turnips with his friend.
    • 1916, Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, page 241:
      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.
  3. (of a horse) To take the irregular gait called singlefoot.
    • 1860, William S. Clark, Massachusetts Agricultural College Annual Report:
      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.
  4. (intransitive, archaic) To sequester; to withdraw; to retire.
    • 1594–1597, Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Will[iam] Stansby [for Matthew Lownes], published 1611, →OCLC ↗, (please specify the page):
      an agent singling itself from consorts
  5. (intransitive, archaic) To take alone, or one by one; to single out.
    • 1594–1597, Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Will[iam] Stansby [for Matthew Lownes], published 1611, →OCLC ↗, (please specify the page):
      men […] commendable when they are singled
  6. (transitive) To reduce (a railway) to single track.
Single
Etymology

From Old English sengel, a topographic surname for someone who lived by a brushwood.

Proper noun
  1. Surname.


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