singularity

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the quality of being one of a kind

   That singularity distinguished them from all their companions.

2. 2
   noun

   The state of being singular, distinct, peculiar, uncommon or unusual.

   Pliny addeth this ſingularity to the Indian ſoil, that it is without weeds, that the second year the very falling down of the seeds yieldeth corn.

3. 3
   noun

   An unusual action or behaviour.

   "Do you know," said she to Guido one morning, when, after asking her to sing, the Englishman had left the room in the very middle of her song, "that I have taken a fancy into my head, which quite accounts for Mr. Arden's singularities: it is, that I am like some one whom he loved and lost in early youth; and though the loss is dreadful, the love is yet pleasant to remember.".

4. 4
   noun

   Ellipsis of gravitational singularity (“a point or region in spacetime in which gravitational forces cause matter to have an infinite density; associated with black holes”).

   At this singularity the laws of science and our ability to predict the future would break down. However, any observer who remained outside the black hole would not be affected by this failure of predictability, because neither light nor any other signal could reach him from the singularity.

From Middle English singularite, from Old French singularité, from Late Latin singulāritās (“singleness”), from Latin singulāris (“single”). By surface analysis, singular + -ity.

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