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say it: SING-guhl
single is an adjective, noun and verb meaning "being or characteristic of a single thing or person". It is pronounced /ˈsɪŋɡəl/ — SING-guhl. It carries 10 recorded senses.
being or characteristic of a single thing or person
“individual drops of rain”
“please mark the individual pages”
“they went their individual ways”
used of flowers having usually only one row or whorl of petals
“single chrysanthemums resemble daisies and may have more than one row of petals”
botany
existing alone or consisting of one entity or part or aspect or individual
“upon the hill stood a single tower”
“had but a single thought which was to escape”
“a single survivor”
“a single serving”
“a single lens”
“a single thickness”
characteristic of or meant for a single person or thing
“an individual serving”
“single occupancy”
“a single bed”
not divided among or brought to bear on more than one object or objective
“judging a contest with a single eye”
“a single devotion to duty”
“undivided affection”
“gained their exclusive attention”
a base hit on which the batter stops safely at first base
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for single come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.