sui generis

adjective

sui ge·ner·is ˌsü-ˌī-ˈje-nə-rəs

ˌsü-ē-ˈje-

-ˈge-

Synonyms of sui generis next

: constituting a class alone : unique, peculiar

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.

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 on the Web

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Parker was often abrasive, but Crowther considers Parker empathetically, as a sui generis who resisted becoming a cog in the filmmaking machinery. —

Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times, 3 Sep. 2024 The Religious is the sui generis otherworldly; the Media is the epitome of the profane this-worldly. —

Sam Kestenbaum, Harper's Magazine, 21 June 2024 But part of Bryan’s stunning commercial success may be that amidst all this influence-peddling, his closest songwriting contemporary is Taylor Swift, whose sui generis worldbuilding Bryan almost always pulls off for himself. —

Jonathan Bernstein, Rolling Stone, 4 July 2024 At the time, the two legal showdowns seemed so sui generis bizarro that they were treated like cultural anomalies. —

David Friend, Washington Post, 27 June 2024 See all Example Sentences for sui generis