Unity

How to spell unity

5 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce unity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unity mean?

1. nounThe state of being joined together or in agreement as a single whole.

Unity in a sentence

• The manager stressed the importance of team unity before the project began.

• National unity tends to grow during a crisis.

Where does unity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Unity comes from the Latin unitas, meaning 'oneness' or 'the state of being one', which was built on the numeral unus, the ordinary Latin word for 'one'. The abstract noun captured the idea of many parts being joined into a single whole, and from there it broadened into a sense of harmony and agreement between people. English took the word in the 1200s through Old French unite, and the spelling gradually settled into the modern form. The same unus root sits behind a whole family of familiar words such as 'unit', 'unite', 'union', and 'unique', which is a useful memory anchor: the word begins with the same uni- you already know. Because that prefix is so well established, unity is rarely misspelt, and the only thing to remember is the simple -ity ending rather than -ety.

How the word is built

• un- (from unus: one)
• -ity (noun suffix: state or quality of)