one
/wʌn/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 6.47 in modern English
3
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
num
The number represented by the Arabic numeral 1; the numerical value equal to that cardinal number.
num
The first positive number in the set of natural numbers.
num
The cardinality of the smallest nonempty set.
num
The ordinality of an element which has no predecessor, usually called first or number one.
pron
The first mentioned of two things or people, as opposed to the other.
pron
Any person (applying to people in general).
Example Sentences
- "In some religions, there is more than one god."
- "In many cultures, a baby turns one year old a year after its birth."
- "One person, one vote."
- "A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable."
- "Venters began to count them—one—two—three—four—on up to sixteen."
- "One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do / Two can be as bad as one / It's the loneliest number since the number one"
Etymology
PIE word *h₁óynos Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ís? Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos Proto-Germanic *ainaz Proto-West Germanic *ain Old English ān Middle English on English one From Middle English oon, on, oan, an, from Old English ān (“one”), from Proto-West Germanic *ain, from Proto-Germanic *ainaz (“one”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos (“single, one”). Doublet of a, an, and Uno. Cognate with Scots ae, ane, wan, yin (“one”); North Frisian ån (“one”); Saterland Frisian aan (“one”); West Frisian ien (“one”); Dutch een, één (“one”); German Low German een; German ein, eins (“one”); Danish en (“one”); Swedish en (“one”); Norwegian Nynorsk ein (“one”), Icelandic einn (“one”); Latin ūnus (“one”) (Old Latin oinos); Russian оди́н (odín), Spanish uno. False cognate of Malayalam ഒന്ന് (onnŭ), Tamil ஒன்னு (oṉṉu), ஒண்ணு (oṇṇu), ஒன்று (oṉṟu). The use as an indefinite personal pronoun may have been influenced by unrelated French on, although the Germanic languages widely use cognates for the same sense (usually in non-subject function, but also in subject function, e.g. Luxembourgish een). Verb form from Middle English onen.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /wʌn/
- British English: /wʌn/
Usage
- American usage
- Archaic
- Colloquial
- Dated
- Derogatory
- Transitive verb
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Law.