# Dear everyone:

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-everyone/720470>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [May 21, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-everyone/720470 "2015-05-21T02:39:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 7

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**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2015, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-everyone/720470/121 "2015-06-01T06:41:22Z")

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> [@Teach-me-not](#):
>
> How is “unique” getting misused? I specifically checked this word in many dictionaries, and guess what, they all list the “wrong” meaning (unusual, rare) as a secondary meaning. If it’s good enough for a dictionary, it’s good enough for me.

It’s just that the meaning has been watered down. As you saw in the dictionaries, “unique”'s first definition is “one of a kind”. It’s an absolute. It’s also self-contradictory for something to be more “one of a kind”. Now, as you note, it’s just a high-sounding synonym for rare or unusual.

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**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2015, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-everyone/720470/122 "2015-06-01T18:02:43Z")

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I’m a potter. I throw nine cups and a bowl. The nine cups are all very similar, as I am a very good potter, but still unique as each cup has minute differences in shape, size and thickness. The bowl differs far more greatly than the cups by virtue of being a bowl. It is more unique than the cups. I don’t see what’s so hard about this.

And, FYI, unique took modifiers a lot before the 1800s, so you could say that it was originally watered down, was arbitrarily restricted and has since been let free to resume its proper breadth of meaning.

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