Etimology
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.
adjective
single (not comparable)
Not accompanied by anything else; one in number.
Not divided in parts.
Designed for the use of only one.
Performed by one person, or one on each side.
Not married, and (in modern times) not dating or without a significant other.
(botany) Having only one rank or row of petals.
(obsolete) Simple and honest; sincere, without deceit.
Uncompounded; pure; unmixed.
(obsolete) Simple; foolish; weak; silly.
Examples
Synonyms: lone, sole
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.
Synonyms: unbroken, undivided, uniform
The potatoes left the spoon and landed in a single big lump on the plate.
a single room
a single combat
These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant, […] / Who now defies thee thrice to single fight.
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.
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage.But earthlier happy is the rose distilledThan that which, withering on the virgin thorn,Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
Single chose to live, and shunned to wed.
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.
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.
He utters such single matter in so infantly a voice.
Related words
related terms
singular
singularity
singularly
noun
single (plural singles)
(music) A 45 RPM vinyl record with one song on side A and one on side B.
(music) A popular song released and sold (on any format) nominally on its own though usually having at least one extra track.
One who is not married or does not have a romantic partner.
(cricket) A score of one run.
(baseball) A hit in baseball where the batter advances to first base.
(dominoes) A tile that has a different value (i.e. number of pips) at each end.
(US, informal) A bill valued at $1.
(UK) A one-way ticket.
(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.
(tennis, chiefly in the plural) A game with one player on each side, as in tennis.
One of the reeled filaments of silk, twisted without doubling to give them firmness.
(UK, Scotland, dialect) A handful of gleaned grain.
(computing, programming) A floating-point number having half the precision of a double-precision value.
(film) A shot of only one character.
A single cigarette.
(rail transport, obsolete) Synonym of single-driver.
Examples
Antonym: album
The Offspring released four singles from their most recent album.
Antonym: married
He went to the party, hoping to meet some friendly singles there.
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.
‘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.’
Synonym: rouge
Coordinate term: double
If you want to be a scientist or an engineer, learn to say “no” to singles and floats.
But if the same scene is shot in singles , the editor and the director can almost redirect the scene on film.
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.
verb
single (third-person singular simple present singles, present participle singling, simple past and past participle singled)
(baseball) To get a hit that advances the batter exactly one base.
(agriculture) To thin out.
(of a horse) To take the irregular gait called singlefoot.
(intransitive, archaic) To sequester; to withdraw; to retire.
(intransitive, archaic) To take alone, or one by one; to single out.
(transitive) To reduce (a railway) to single track.
Examples
Pedro singled in the bottom of the eighth inning, which, if converted to a run, would put the team back into contention.
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.
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.
an agent singling itself from consorts
men […] commendable when they are singled
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.