What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Extraordinary vs Unique - What's the difference?

extraordinary | unique |

As adjectives the difference between extraordinary and unique

is that extraordinary is not ordinary; exceptional; unusual while unique is 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.

extraordinary

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Not ordinary; exceptional; unusual;
  • *
  • *
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=October 23, author=Tom Fordyce, work=BBC Sport
    • , title= 2011 Rugby World Cup final: New Zealand 8-7 France , passage=Tony Woodcock's early try and a penalty from fourth-choice fly-half Stephen Donald were enough to see the All Blacks home in an extraordinary match that defied all pre-match predictions.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=52, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= The new masters and commanders , passage=From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much.
  • Remarkably good.

    • Usage notes

    * Can be said of all kinds of objects including people, events, things, and terms. * The pronunciation "extrordinary" is often preferred so as to avoid confusion with "extra ordinary", which would be defined as "more ordinary than usual".

    Synonyms

    *

    Antonyms

    * everyday, normal, ordinary, regular, usual

    Derived terms

    * extraordinary optical transmission * extraordinary professor * extraordinary rendition

    unique

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (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 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—’}}
  • *
  • *
  • 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}}

    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 * singular

    Derived terms

    * uniqueness

    Related terms

    * unicity * one-of-a-kind * inimitable

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled.
  • * De Quincey
    • The phoenix, the unique of birds.

    External links

    * * * English autological terms English disputed terms ----