Typical vs Unique - What's the difference?
typical | unique |
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 Anything that is typical, normal, or standard.
(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 *
*
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}}
A thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled.
* De Quincey
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)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 alsoAntonyms
* atypicalDerived terms
* typicality * typically * typicalnessSee also
* gestalt * gist * resemblance * emblematic * prefigurative * distinctiveNoun
(en noun)- Antipsychotic drugs can be divided into typicals and atypicals.
- Among the moths, typicals were more common than melanics.
External links
* *unique
English
Adjective
(en adjective)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—’}}
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 * singularDerived terms
* uniquenessNoun
(en noun)- The phoenix, the unique of birds.
