Singulative
adj, noun
adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A singulative form or construction.
"The singulative of "cattle" is "a head of cattle"."
Adjective
- 1 Of or pertaining to a grammatical form or construction that expresses the individuation of a single referent from a mass noun. not-comparable
"English doesn't have a singulative number in general, but many uncountable nouns have usual singulative constructions."
Example
More examples"English doesn't have a singulative number in general, but many uncountable nouns have usual singulative constructions."
Etymology
From French singulatif, from Latin singillatim (“singly", "one by one”), from singulus (“single", "separate”), from Proto-Italic *sem-g-lo-, a diminutive form derived from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one, together”).
Related phrases
More for "singulative"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.