Definitions

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

  • adjective Having only one meaning; unambiguous.
  • noun A word or term having only one meaning.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In mathematics, having only one result.
  • Having one meaning only; having the meaning unmistakable: opposed to equivocal.
  • In music, having a unisonous sound.
  • Certain; not to be doubted or mistaken.
  • Producing something of its own nature: as, univocal generation; a univocal cause.
  • noun A word having only one signification or meaning; a generic word, or a word predicable of many different species, as fish, tree.

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

  • adjective Having one meaning only; -- contrasted with equivocal.
  • adjective Having unison of sound, as the octave in music. See Unison, n., 2.
  • adjective rare Having always the same drift or tenor; uniform; certain; regular.
  • adjective obsolete Unequivocal; indubitable.
  • noun (Aristotelian Logic) A generic term, or a term applicable in the same sense to all the species it embraces.
  • noun A word having but one meaning.

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

  • adjective Having only one possible meaning.
  • adjective Containing only one vowel.

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

  • adjective admitting of no doubt or misunderstanding; having only one meaning or interpretation and leading to only one conclusion

Etymologies

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

[From Late Latin ūnivocus : Latin ūni-, uni- + Latin vocāre, to say; see wekw- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Late Latin ūnivocus +‎ -al.

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Examples

  • First, there are analogical terms which are univocal in a broad sense of ˜univocal™.

    Medieval Theories of Analogy Ashworth, E. Jennifer 2009

  • Does Roger Bacon, in his best work, in which he treats of light and vision, express himself much more clearly than Aristotle when he says light is created by means of multiplying its luminous species, which action is called univocal and conformable to the agent?

    A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

  • If we totally lose our ability to recognize and to understand irony, then we will be doomed to a kind of univocal discourse, which is alright I suppose for politicians 'speeches and perhaps for certain representatives of popular religion, but will leave us badly defrauded.

    A Conversation with Harold Bloom author of How To Read and Why 2010

  • All I will add in this short post is that the apostle Peter, as depicted in the Acts of the Apostles, seems not to agree with your depiction of the "univocal" expression of all New Testament figures, when he is presented as saying "I now realise how true it is that God does not show favoratism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right" Acts 10:34-35.

    Brief Reply To Michael Halcomb James F. McGrath 2008

  • All I will add in this short post is that the apostle Peter, as depicted in the Acts of the Apostles, seems not to agree with your depiction of the "univocal" expression of all New Testament figures, when he is presented as saying "I now realise how true it is that God does not show favoratism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right" Acts 10:34-35.

    Archive 2008-02-01 James F. McGrath 2008

  • But it was stated above that the word 'univocal' was applied to those things which had both name and definition in common.

    Categoriae. English 384 BC-322 BC Aristotle

  • This distrust of totalizing mechanisms extends even to the author; thus postmodern writers often celebrate chance over craft and employ metafiction to undermine the author’s "univocal" control (the control of only one voice).

    The only thing appealing about the L.A. Times’ Postmodern list is its cute little icons 2009

  • This distrust of totalizing mechanisms extends even to the author; thus postmodern writers often celebrate chance over craft and employ metafiction to undermine the author’s "univocal" control (the control of only one voice).

    2009 July 19 | NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS 2009

  • Transubstantiation is a far more "univocal" reading of the words "This is my body" than Zwingli's interpretation.

    Blame It on Calvin & Luther Barton Swaim 2012

  • Very interesting, one might think—except that the book presents no evidence that any Protestant reformer actually espoused "univocal metaphysics," in the author's phrase.

    Blame It on Calvin & Luther Barton Swaim 2012

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