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Unique vs Similar - What's the difference?

unique | similar |

As adjectives the difference between unique and similar

is that unique is being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched while similar is having traits or characteristics in common; alike, comparable.

As nouns the difference between unique and similar

is that unique is a thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled while similar is that which is similar to, or resembles, something else, as in quality, form, etc.

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

    Noun

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

    similar

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having traits or characteristics in common; alike, comparable.
  • *
  • *:So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills,a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Charles T. Ambrose
  • , title= Alzheimer’s Disease , volume=101, issue=3, page=200, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads.}}
  • (mathematics) Of geometrical figures including triangles, squares, ellipses, arcs and more complex figures, having the same shape but possibly different size, rotational orientation, and position; in particular, having corresponding angles equal and corresponding line segments proportional; such that one can be had from the other using a sequence of operations of rotation, translation and scaling.
  • Synonyms

    * (with common characteristics) akin, alike, comparable, identical, same, twin

    Antonyms

    * (alike) different, unlike

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • That which is similar to, or resembles, something else, as in quality, form, etc.
  • (homeopathy) A material that produces an effect that resembles the symptoms of a particular disease