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Typical vs Unique - What's the difference?

typical | unique |

As adjectives the difference between typical and unique

is that typical is capturing the overall sense of a thing while unique is being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched.

As nouns the difference between typical and unique

is that typical is anything that is typical, normal, or standard while unique is a thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled.

typical

English

Alternative forms

* typicall (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Capturing the overall sense of a thing.
  • Characteristically representing something by form, group, idea or type.
  • Normal, average; to be expected.
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006, author=
  • , title=Internal Combustion , chapter=2 citation , passage=One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn. Fifty such kilns would devour six thousand metric tons of trees and brush annually.}}

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Antonyms

    * atypical

    Derived terms

    * typicality * typically * typicalness

    See also

    * gestalt * gist * resemblance * emblematic * prefigurative * distinctive

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Anything that is typical, normal, or standard.
  • Antipsychotic drugs can be divided into typicals and atypicals.
    Among the moths, typicals were more common than melanics.

    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.