sui generis en · ADJ
Pronunciation
- /ˌsuː.i ˈɡɛn.ə.ɹɪs/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /ˌs(j)uː.aɪ ˈd͡ʒɛn.ə.ɹɪs/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /ˌsuː.i ˈd͡ʒɛn.ə.ɹɪs/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- (US) audio
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin suī generis (literally “of its own kind/class”).
Meanings
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(not-comparable) In a class of its own; one of a kind.
Hitchens was sui generis. He made most other book reviewers, to borrow Dorothy Parker’s words about the drama critic George Jean Nathan, “look as if they spelled out their reviews with alphabet blocks.”
2024 January 1, Dwight Garner, “Want to Feel, Intellectually, Like Someone Is Rotating Your Tires?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 04 Feb 2024:The basic operational mechanisms and business practices were so new and strange, so utterly sui generis, that all we could see was a gaggle of “innovative” horseless carriages.
2018, Shoshana Zuboff, chapter 11, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism:We see him as he sees himself, surveying the invisible depths of ethical space, with all the distinction of a specialist in the sui generis.
1995, J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words:Based on Phoebe Gloeckner’s remarkable, sui generis semi-autobiographical graphic novel, […]
2015 August 6, Leslie Felperin, “The Diary of a Teenage Girl review – a scaldingly honest coming-of-age comedy”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 14 Aug 2021:The transcendent case before us is absolutely sui generis.
1828, John Pye Smith, Four Discourses on the Sacrifice and Priesthood of Jesus Christ: and on Atonement and Redemption, page 67:It is easy to describe second-rate talents, because they fall into a class and enlist under a standard; but first-rate powers defy calculation or comparison, and can be defined only by themselves. They are sui generis, and make the class to which they belong.
1821–1822, William Hazlitt, “Character of Cobbett”, in Table-Talk; or, Original Essays, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John Warren; Henry Colburn and Co.:The system was neither free enterprise nor socialism; it was sui generis, one of the unique creations of the Middle Ages.
1994, Frances and Joseph Gies, “The Technology of the Commercial Revolution”, in Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel, →ISBN, page 111:The eminent Italian geologist, Stoppani, goes further than I had ventured to do, and treats the action of man as a new physical element altogether sui generis.
1874, George P. Marsh, The Earth as Modified by Human Action:
Synonyms
original · one of a kind · unique
Translations (12)
de eigener Art (in a class of its own) · nl enig in zijn soort (in a class of its own) · eo siaspeca (in a class of its own) · el ιδιόρρυθμος (in a class of its own) · hu sajátságos (in a class of its own) · pl sui generis (in a class of its own) · is sér á báti (in a class of its own) · tr nevi şahsına münhasır (in a class of its own) · hu sajátos (in a class of its own) · nl bijzonder (in a class of its own) · de sui generis (in a class of its own) · is á ekki sinn líka (in a class of its own)