Adjective

(en adjective)

Out of the ordinary; odd; curious; unusual.

The sky had a peculiar appearance before the storm.

It would be rather peculiar to see a kangaroo hopping down a city street.

* 1800 , , Volume 41, page 379,

I saw nothing peculiar in his conduct, and thought that his arrangement of the ballot box was perfect.

* 2001 , Jack Schaefer, Wendell Minor, Shane ,

"Wasn't it peculiar ," I heard mother say, "How he wouldn't talk about himself?"

"Peculiar ?" said father. "Well, yes, in a way."

"Everything about him is peculiar ." Mother sounded as if she was stirred up and interested. "I never saw a man quite like him before."

* 2008', Stephen Arnott, '''''Peculiar Proverbs: Weird Words of Wisdom from Around the World .

Common or usual for a certain place or circumstance; specific or particular.

Kangaroos are peculiar to Australia.

* 1855 , ,

This philosopher found his ideas especially in all that is practical,^[29] that is, which rests upon freedom, which in its turn ranks under cognitions that are the peculiar product of reason.

*

* 1895 , , XX: Anomalous Islands: Celebes,

But of late years extensive Tertiary deposits of Miocene age have been discovered, showing that it is not a mere congeries of volcanoes; it [Iceland] is connected with the British Islands and with Greenland by seas less than 500 fathoms deep; and it possesses a few mammalia, one of which is peculiar', and at least three ' peculiar species of birds.

(dated) One's own; belonging solely or especially to an individual; not shared or possessed by others.

* Bible, Titus ii. 14

And purify unto himself a peculiar people.

* Hooker

hymns that Christianity hath peculiar unto itself

(dated) Particular; individual; special; appropriate.

* Milton

while each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat

* Dryden

My fate is Juno's most peculiar care.

Adjective

(en adjective)

(not comparable) Being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched.

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* {{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—’}}

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*

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}}