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.

Original vs Unique - What's the difference?

original | unique |

In not comparable terms the difference between original and unique

is that original is having as its origin while unique is being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched.

original

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (label) Relating to the origin or beginning; preceding all others.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1944, author=(w)
  • , title= The Three Corpse Trick, chapter=5 , passage=The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.}}
  • (label) First in a series or copies/versions.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
  • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, […].}}
  • (label) Newly created.
  • (label) Fresh, different.
  • (label) Pioneering.
  • (label) Having as its origin.
  • Synonyms

    * (first in series ) initial * autograph * prototype

    Antonyms

    * copy * derivative * reproduction * simile

    Derived terms

    * originally * original sin

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An object or other creation (e.g. narrative work) from which all later copies and variations are derived
  • This manuscript is the original
  • A person with a unique and interesting personality and/or creative talent
  • You’re an original
  • (archaic) An eccentric
  • Synonyms

    * autograph * prototype

    Antonyms

    * copy * remake * reproduction

    Statistics

    *

    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.