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Uniform vs Unique - What's the difference?

uniform | unique |

As adjectives the difference between uniform and unique

is that uniform is unvarying; all the same while unique is being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched.

As nouns the difference between uniform and unique

is that uniform is a distinctive outfit that serves to identify members of a group while unique is a thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled.

As a verb uniform

is to clothe in a uniform.

uniform

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Unvarying; all the same.
  • Consistent; conforming to one standard.
  • * Hooker
    • The only doubt is how far churches are bound to be uniform in their ceremonies.
  • (mathematics) with speed of convergence not depending on choice of function argument; as in uniform continuity, uniform convergence

    • Derived terms

    * uniformity * uniformly

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A distinctive outfit that serves to identify members of a group.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=6 citation , passage=‘[…] I remember a lady coming to inspect St. Mary's Home where I was brought up and seeing us all in our lovely Elizabethan uniforms we were so proud of, and bursting into tears all over us because “it was wicked to dress us like charity children”. […]’.}}
  • * F. W. Robertson
    • There are many things which a soldier will do in his plain clothes which he scorns to do in his uniform .
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Peter Wilby)
    • , volume=189, issue=6, page=30, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Finland spreads word on schools , passage=Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16.
  • Phonetic equivalent for the letter U in the ICAO spelling alphabet, informally known as the NATO phonetic alphabet.
  • A uniformed police officer (as opposed to a detective).
  • * 1996 , S. J. Rozan, Concourse , Macmillan, ISBN 0-312-95944-3, page 265,
    • Skeletor held the gun against Speedo’s head, held Speedo between himself and the cops who stood, motionless and futile, where they’d stopped. Robinson, Lindfors, Carter, three uniforms and I watched helpless as Skeletor, dragging Speedy with him, inched out the gate, started backing down the hill.
  • * 2001 , Christine Wiltz, The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld , Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-81012-3, page 113,
    • Four men flew out of it, three uniforms and one in what appeared to be an English riding outfit—boots, whip, the whole nine yards. He called out, “I’m the superintendent of police.”
  • * 2004 , , Penny Dreadful , MacAdam/Cage Publishing, ISBN 1-931561-81-8, page 81,
    • Eyes to the front now and there was the body, a lump of black and brown. Moon counted three uniforms and a photographer, the medical examiner and his assistant.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To clothe in a uniform.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1910, author=Robert W. Chambers, title=Ailsa Paige, chapter=, edition= citation
    • , passage=You can't erect an army by uniforming and drilling a few hundred thousand clerks and farmers. }} ----

    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 ----