Unit

How to spell unit

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce unit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unit mean?

1. nounA single complete thing, person, or group regarded as a whole, or a fixed quantity used as a standard of measurement.

Unit in a sentence

• Each unit on the production line is tested before it ships.

• The kitchen plan includes a corner unit for the oven.

Where does unit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin unus, which simply meant 'one'. It does not come down to us through a long folk tradition; instead it was deliberately coined in English around 1570 by the mathematician John Dee, who needed a clean term for a single quantity from which counting begins. He formed it from the Latin root for 'one' and shaped the ending so that it rhymed with and resembled 'digit', giving the tidy modern form 'unit'. From its origins in arithmetic, the sense broadened to mean any single complete thing treated as a whole, whether a measurement, a piece of equipment, a flat in a building, or a group of soldiers. The same Latin unus lies behind a whole family of relatives such as 'unite', 'union', 'unique', and 'universe', and that shared 'uni-' beginning is a reliable cue for the spelling.

How the word is built

• un- (from Latin unus: one)
• -it (noun ending, patterned on 'digit')