Singularity

How to spell singularity

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce singularity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does singularity mean?

1. nounThe quality of being unique, peculiar, or unlike anything else.
2. nounA point at which a physical quantity or mathematical function becomes infinite or undefined, such as the centre of a black hole.
3. nounA hypothetical future point at which artificial intelligence surpasses human control and triggers rapid, unpredictable change.

Singularity in a sentence

• The painting's singularity made it instantly recognisable among hundreds of forgeries.

• The equations break down at the singularity where density becomes infinite.

• The conference debated whether the technological singularity would arrive within decades.

• Critics praised the singularity of her writing style.

• Physicists describe the heart of a black hole as a singularity.

• His book argues that the singularity remains a speculative idea rather than a certainty.

Where does singularity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin singularis, meaning 'single', 'alone', or 'one of a kind', which was itself built on singulus, meaning 'one at a time' or 'individual'. The abstract noun singularitas, naming the quality of being one or unique, passed into Old French as singularite before English adopted it in the late 1300s with the sense of a peculiarity or something exceptional. For centuries it simply meant strangeness or distinctiveness, the state of standing apart from everything else. From the nineteenth century onward, mathematicians and later physicists borrowed the word for a point at which a function or a physical quantity becomes undefined or infinite, such as the centre of a black hole. The same Latin root sits inside the everyday word 'single', and remembering that link helps fix the tricky '-gular-' middle and the '-ity' ending in the spelling.

How the word is built

• singular- (from Latin singularis: alone, one of a kind)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)