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sui generis was our Word of the Day on 05/13/2013. Hear the podcast!
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Examples of sui generis in a Sentence
among history's greats Leonardo da Vinci is often considered sui generis—a man of such stupendous genius that the world may never see his like again
Recent Examples of sui generis from the Web
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Maybe Rivera, the greatest relief pitcher in major-league history, is sui generis for him that regard.
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Very quickly his job became doing whatever chore was in the offing—a sui generis job he's held for years.
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As a high school prospect, Newman was regarded as a sui generis offensive talent, the type of player who can take over a game no matter the opponent.
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Gay guys may find themselves with the freedom to indulge the tastes that once would have gotten them called sissies, but no one is entirely sui generis in their style nor exempt from expectations of dating and the workplace.
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Route 91 was a sui generis attack — a gunman in an offsite hotel perched high above an unsuspecting crowd.
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But the sui generis qualities of Trump’s presidency have created new opportunities for those with West Wing access looking to cash in.
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But Trump is not sui generis; his authoritarian impulses merely represent a more extreme iteration of a growing impulse on the right.
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Last year, the octogenarian sui generis singer and songwriter scored a coup by luring rarely touring Northern Irish soul legend Van Morrison to play a single show with him, in Hershey, Pa., of all places.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'sui generis.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
English contains many terms that ultimately trace back to the Latin forms gener- or "genus" (which are variously translated as "birth," "race," "kind," and "class"). Offspring of those roots include "general," "generate," "generous," "generic," "degenerate," and "gender." But "sui generis" is truly a one-of-a-kind "gener-" descendant that English speakers have used for singular things since the late 1600s. Its earliest uses were in scientific contexts, where it identified substances, principles, diseases, and even rocks that were unique or that seemed to be the only representative of their class or group. By the early 1900s, however, "sui generis" had expanded beyond solely scientific contexts, and it is now used more generally for anything that stands alone.
Origin and Etymology of sui generis
Latin, of its own kind
sui generis Synonyms
Near Antonyms
divers, manifold, multifarious, myriad;
assorted, heterogenous, miscellaneous, mixed, motley, patchwork, promiscuous, varied;
Related Words
single, solo, unaccompanied, unattended;
incomparable, inimitable, matchless, peerless, unequaled (or unequalled), unmatched, unparalleled, unrivaled (or unrivalled), unsurpassable, unsurpassed;
SUI GENERIS Defined for English Language Learners
Definition of sui generis for English Language Learners
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: in a class or group of its own : not like anything else
Law Dictionary
legal Definition of sui generis
: constituting a class alone : unique or particular to itself
- the lawyer's…ad that makes no distinction among various legal and factual nuances in each sui generis case has the potential to mislead
- —National Law Journal
Origin and Etymology of sui generis
Latin, of its own kind
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