single

adjective · noun · verb

Simple meaning

Only one of something, or not married

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

singguhl

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈsɪŋɡəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

Not accompanied by anything else; one in number.
Not married or related to the unmarried state
Not married, and (in modern times) not dating or without a significant other.
Designed for the use of only one.
Not divided in parts.
Performed by one person, or one on each side.

noun

One who is not married or does not have a romantic partner.
One of the reeled filaments of silk, twisted without doubling to give them firmness.
uk
A one-way ticket.
usinformal
A bill valued at $1.
A single cigarette.

verb

of a horse
To take the irregular gait called singlefoot.
transitive
To reduce (a railway) to single track.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency: Very Common
Typical Use: Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Not accompanied by anything else; one in number.

Used this way, single is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: No strong connotation
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Married

single day

Existing

single individual

Other combinations

single wordsingle personsingle pointsingle linesingle cellsingle case

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

singlesnounPlural form
Badminton played with one person on each side.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

singlyadverbDerived adverb
One by one.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

single-breasted suitnounCompound term
A suit having a single-breasted jacket.
single combatnounCompound term
A fight between two people.
single creamnounCompound term
Cream that has at least 18% butterfat.
single crochetnounCompound term
The basic crochet stitch.
single dwellingnounCompound term
A house that stands alone.
single entrynounCompound term
A simple bookkeeping system.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

singletonnounRelated term
A single object (as distinguished from a pair).

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

adjective

Sense: not accompanied by anything else

separate

noun

Sense: one who is not married

unwed

Antonyms

Sense: one who is not married

married

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.