unitary

[yoo-ni-ter-ee]

Example Sentences

adjective

of or pertaining to a unit or units.

of, pertaining to, characterized by, or aiming toward unity: the unitary principles of nationalism.

of the nature of a unit; having the indivisible character of a unit; whole.

serving as a unit, as of measurement or estimation.

of or pertaining to the use of units: A unitary method was applied.

EXPAND

Government. of or pertaining to a system of government in which the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of each state in a body of states are vested in a central authority.

COLLAPSE

Origin:
1810–20; unit, unit(y) + -ary

Related forms

u·ni·tar·i·ness, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Unitary is always a great word to know.

So is ninnyhammer. Does it mean:

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

Example Sentences

Some comments imply there is a unitary state, homogenous in all respects.

If anything, it's sort of counterintuitive that the unitary family has persisted so long and pervasively in our society.

Collins

World English Dictionary

unitary (ˈjuːnɪtərɪ, -trɪ)

—*adj*
1.	of a unit or units
2.	based on or characterized by unity
3.	individual; whole
4.	Compare federal of or relating to a system of government in which all governing authority is held by the central government

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Related Words

Swindon system Thurrock

Thurrock unitarian

Matching Quote

"There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Scholars have differed about the correct interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog's one defence. But, taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general. For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance—and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory.... Their thought is scattered or diffused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects for what they are in themselves, without, consciously or unconsciously, seeking to fit them into, or exclude them from any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete, at times fanatical, unitary inner vision. The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes; and without insisting on a rigid classifica tion, we may, without too much fear of contradiction, say that, in this sense, Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the second."

-Isaiah Berlin

unitary

u·ni·tar·y