One

How to spell one

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce one

What does one mean?

1. determinerThe number 1; a single person or thing.
2. pronounA particular but unspecified person or thing already referred to or understood.

One in a sentence

• determiner

  Only one seat was left on the train.

• pronoun

  Of the two jackets, he preferred the blue one.

• determiner

  She ordered one coffee and a slice of cake.

• pronoun

  That is the one I wanted to buy.

Where does one come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is one of the oldest words in English, descending directly from Old English 'an', which meant 'one' or 'a single thing'. That came from a shared Germanic root, and ultimately from an ancient Indo-European source that also gave Latin 'unus' (seen in 'unit' and 'union') and Greek words for single things. For centuries the word was pronounced much as its spelling suggests, with a long 'o' sound, and that older pronunciation survives in the related words 'only', 'alone' and 'atone' (literally 'at one'). During the late medieval and early modern period a regional habit of adding a 'w' glide at the front spread into standard speech, which is why we now say 'wun' while still writing 'one'. The same Old English 'an' also weakened into the indefinite articles 'a' and 'an', so the humble article and the number share a single ancestor. That mismatch between the spelling and the modern sound is also why 'one' and 'won' became homophones.

How the word is built

• one (single, unitary; from Old English an, a single unit)

Words that sound like one

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• won: The past tense of 'win': to have been victorious in, or to have gained something through competition or effort.