unique
/juːˈniːk/adjective, noun
unique is spelled U-N-I-Q-U-E. The wrong spelling people search most is unqiue: about 70 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 159 of all searches for the word. Unique is an adjective meaning “Being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched”.
How many letters and syllables are in unique?
| Letters | 6: U-N-I-Q-U-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 56 times per million words; the 1,822nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, unqiue, about 70 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell unique?
Unique is spelled U-N-I-Q-U-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 160 of the searches for unique in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is unique?
Unique appears 56 times per million words in written English, the 1,822nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce unique?
- /juːˈniːk/
- /jəˈ-/
Unique has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-unique.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of unique
- uniquer comparative
- more unique comparative
- uniquest superlative
- most unique superlative
- uniques plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does unique mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched.
Every person has a unique life, therefore every person has a unique journey.
- 2
Of a feature, such that only one holder has it.
- 3
Particular, characteristic.
- 4
proscribedRare or unusual.
noun
- 1
A thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled; one of a kind.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Unique in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense one of a kind:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does unique come from?
Borrowed from French unique, from Latin unicus.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).