Nonpareil
adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A person or thing that has no equal; a paragon. countable
"My lord and master loves you. O, such love / Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd / The nonpareil of beauty!"
- 2 a flat disk of chocolate covered with beads of colored sugar wordnet
- 3 The blue underwing or Clifden nonpareil (Catocala fraxini), a species of moth distributed across the Palearctic; also (obsolete) any of a number of moths of other species. countable, uncountable
- 4 colored beads of sugar used as a topping on e.g. candies and cookies wordnet
- 5 In full nonpareil parrot: an eastern rosella, of species Platycercus eximius, a rosella (parrot) native to southeastern Australia. Australia, archaic, countable, uncountable
Show 8 more definitions
- 6 model of excellence or perfection of a kind; one having no equal wordnet
- 7 A painted bunting (Passerina ciris), a brightly-coloured finch native to North America. US, countable, uncountable
- 8 In full nonpareil apple: an apple tasting both sweet and tart which ripens very late in the season; also, the tree producing this fruit. archaic, countable, uncountable
- 9 Any of various types of small sweets. US, archaic, countable, uncountable
- 10 A small pellet of white or coloured sugar used as decoration on baked goods and candy. US, broadly, countable, dated, uncountable
- 11 A small, flat chocolate drop covered with such pellets of sugar, similar to a comfit. US, broadly, countable, uncountable
- 12 A caper (“pickled edible flower bud”) of the smallest size. US, broadly, countable, uncountable
- 13 A size of type between ruby and emerald (or, in the United States, between agate and minion), standardized as 6-point; (countable) a slug of this size. historical, uncountable
"I believe that letters which are less than a millimetre and a half (1/17 inch) high, will finally prove injurious to the eye. How little attention has hitherto been paid to this important subject is exemplified in the fact that even oculistic journals and books frequently contain nonpareil, or letters only a millimetre (1/25 inch) high."
- 1 Unequalled, unrivalled; unique.
"He informed the clerk that he would remain three or four days, inquired concerning the sailing of European steamships, and sank into the blissful inanition of the nonpareil hotel with the contented air of a traveller in his favorite inn."
- 1 eminent beyond or above comparison wordnet
Example
More examples"Since the tragic upshot of our visit to Devonshire he had been engaged in two affairs of the utmost importance, in the first of which he had exposed the atrocious conduct of Colonel Upwood in connection with the famous card scandal of the Nonpareil Club, while in the second he had defended the unfortunate Mme. Montpensier from the charge of murder which hung over her in connection with the death of her step-daughter, Mlle. Carére, the young lady who, as it will be remembered, was found six months later alive and married in New York."
Etymology
From Late Middle English non-parail (“unparalleled, nonpareil”) [and other forms], from Middle French nonpareille, nonpareil (“unparalleled”) (obsolete), from non- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + pareil (“alike, like, same”). Pareil is derived from Old French pareil, from Late Latin pāriculus (“equal; like; of a number: even”), from Latin pār (“equal; like; of a number: even; suitable”) + -culus (a variant of -ulus (suffix forming diminutives)). Doublet of umpire. Noun sense 4 (size of type standardized at 6-point) is usually taken to derive from the attractive type cut by the brothers Giovanni and Gregorio De Gregori (fl. 1482–1503 and 1496–1527 respectively) for their 1498 edition of the divine offices in Venice; it was for a long time the smallest-sized type in use.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.