Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell unique

hear itu·nique/'junik/adjectiveSilent and tricky

What it means: One of a kind or special.

In a sentence: The butterfly has unique patterns on its wings.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as uneek or uniqe.

Same family: uniquely, uniqueness, distinct, special, individual. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Unique” comes from the Latin word “unicus,” meaning “only, single, one of a kind.” For a long time, careful writers insisted that something could not be “very unique,” because by definition it was already one of a kind.

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