Literary notes about singular (AI summary)
Across literary works, "singular" emerges as a highly versatile term that conveys uniqueness and often hints at an extraordinary quality in people, events, or even abstract ideas. Authors employ it to describe remarkable transformations in character, as seen when an event brings about a "singular alteration for the better" ([1]) or when an individual acknowledges himself as something uniquely exceptional ([2]). It also paints scenes of rare or inexplicable circumstances—from the uncanny ambience of a "wildly singular" night filled with terror and beauty ([3]) to the peculiar personal traits that set a character apart ([4]). Even beyond narrative prose, the term finds utility in grammatical contexts to denote singular forms, reinforcing the notion of oneness ([5], [6]). Thus, "singular" functions both as a marker of distinctiveness in narrative art and as an essential tool in the precise description of language and existence.
- But either that event, or something else, had produced a singular alteration for the better in him.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - He had not discovered anything new in biology; but what biological creature could he have discovered more singular than himself?
— from The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G. K. Chesterton - It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - She was a singular being, and, like me, inherited much of the peculiar disposition of our father.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - The relative quī , who , which , is declined as follows: Singular. Plural.
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane - The quantitative partitive is usually a singular, limiting a neuter singular word denoting amount.
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane
