Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Being the only example of its kind; unique.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of his, her, its, or their own or peculiar kind; singular.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • Of his or its own kind.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective In a class of its own; one of a kind.
  • adjective rarer By itself; of its own.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective constituting a class of its own; unique

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin suī generis : suī, of its own + generis, genitive of genus, kind.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowed from Latin. From suī (“of its own”) + generis, the genitive of genus (“kind”). Literally meaning “of its own kind”.

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Examples

  • If, in reviews, Paul Morgan comes off as a showboater and Jim Javor seems like a modest Luddite, then Randy Bott, who has since fallen out of the top 25, is sui generis.

    NYT > Home Page By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN 2010

  • If, in reviews, Paul Morgan comes off as a showboater and Jim Javor seems like a modest Luddite, then Randy Bott, who has since fallen out of the top 25, is sui generis.

    NYT > Technology By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN 2010

Comments

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  • 1 of a kind

    May 26, 2009

  • Dictionary.com:

    Latin.

    of his, her, its, or their own kind; unique.

    June 19, 2009

  • "William Randolph Hearst did not speak often of his father. He preferred to think of himself as sui generis and self-created, which in many ways he was."

    - David Nasaw, 'The Chief'.

    July 31, 2009

  • The fact that St. Thomas Aquinas considers angels to be sui generis is a consequence of imperfections in his ontology. Refute.

    August 5, 2009

  • sem semelhanca com nenhum outro; unico no seu genero; original; peculiar; singular

    February 18, 2016