Certain vs Unique - What's the difference?
certain | unique |
Sure, positive, not doubting.
(obsolete) Determined; resolved.
* Milton
Not to be doubted or denied; established as a fact.
* Bible, Dan. ii. 45
Actually existing; sure to happen; inevitable.
* Dryden
* Shakespeare
Unfailing; infallible.
* Mead
Fixed or stated; regular; determinate.
* Bible, Ex. xvi. 4
Not specifically named; indeterminate; indefinite; one or some; sometimes used independently as a noun, and meaning certain persons.
* Bible, Luke v. 12
* Macaulay
Having been determined but unspecified. The quality of some particular subject or object which is known by the speaker to have been specifically singled out among similar entities of its class.
* Bible, Acts xxiii. 12
* , title=The Mirror and the Lamp
, chapter=3 (not comparable) Being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched.
*
*
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
, title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=3 *
*
Of a feature, such that only one holder has it.
Particular, characteristic.
* '>citation
(proscribed) Of a rare quality, unusual.
* {{quote-book, passage=And as I look back, it seems to me that we were fairly unique , the sixty of us, in that there wasn’t one good mixer in the bunch.
, title=For Esmé—With Love and Squalor
, author=J.D. Salinger
, year=1950}}
A thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled.
* De Quincey
As adjectives the difference between certain and unique
is that certain is certain while unique is (not comparable) being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched.As a noun unique is
a thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled.certain
English
Adjective
(wikipedia certain) (en adjective)- I was certain of my decision.
- However, I with thee have fixed my lot, / Certain to undergo like doom.
- The dream is certain , and the interpretation thereof sure.
- Bankruptcy is the certain outcome of your constant gambling and lending.
- Virtue that directs our ways / Through certain dangers to uncertain praise.
- Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all.
- I have often wished that I knew as certain a remedy for any other distemper.
- The people go out and gather a certain rate every day.
- It came to pass when he was in a certain city.
- About everything he wrote there was a certain natural grace and decorum.
Synonyms
* See alsoAntonyms
* (not doubting) uncertain * (sure to happen) impossible, incidentalDerived terms
* certainlyDeterminer
(en determiner)- Certain of the Jews banded together.
citation, passage=One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”}}
Statistics
*External links
* *Anagrams
* * 1000 English basic words ----unique
English
Adjective
(en adjective)citation, passage=‘[…] There's every Staffordshire crime-piece ever made in this cabinet, and that's unique . The Van Hoyer Museum in New York hasn't that very rare second version of Maria Marten's Red Barn over there, nor the little Frederick George Manning—he was the criminal Dickens saw hanged on the roof of the gaol in Horsemonger Lane, by the way—’}}
Usage notes
The comparative and superlative forms more unique'' and ''most unique'', as well as the use of ''unique'' with modifiers as in ''fairly unique'' and ''very unique , are sometimes proscribed, with the reasoning that either something is unique or it is not.Synonyms
(checksyns) * one of a kind * sui generis * singularDerived terms
* uniquenessNoun
(en noun)- The phoenix, the unique of birds.