unity
Americannoun
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the state of being one; oneness.
- Synonyms:
- individuality, singularity, singleness
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a whole or totality as combining all its parts into one.
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the state or fact of being united or combined into one, as of the parts of a whole; unification.
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absence of diversity; unvaried or uniform character.
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oneness of mind, feeling, etc., as among a number of persons; concord, harmony, or agreement.
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Mathematics.
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the number one; a quantity regarded as one.
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(in literature and art) a relation of all the parts or elements of a work constituting a harmonious whole and producing a single general effect.
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one of the three principles of dramatic structure the three unities derived from Aristotelian aesthetics and formalized in the neoclassic canon in which a play is required to represent action as taking place in one day unity of time, as occurring within one place unity of place, and as having a single plot with a beginning, middle, and end unity of action.
noun
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the state or quality of being one; oneness
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the act, state, or quality of forming a whole from separate parts
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something whole or complete that is composed of separate parts
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mutual agreement; harmony or concord
the participants were no longer in unity
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uniformity or constancy
unity of purpose
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maths
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the number or numeral one
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a quantity assuming the value of one
the area of the triangle was regarded as unity
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the element of a set producing no change in a number following multiplication
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the arrangement of the elements in a work of art in accordance with a single overall design or purpose
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any one of the three principles of dramatic structure deriving from Aristotle's Poetics by which the action of a play should be limited to a single plot (unity of action), a single location (unity of place), and the events of a single day (unity of time)
Synonym Usage
See union.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of unity
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English unite, from Old French, from Latin ūnitās, from ūn(us) one + -itās -ity
Explanation
Unity is being together or at one with someone or something. It's the opposite of being divided. This is a word for togetherness or oneness. When the north won the Civil War, it assured the unity of the United States. Sports teams wear uniforms to show unity, and their fans wear team colors for the same reason. When a bunch of people act as one and are on the same page, they're displaying unity. When people are bickering and disorganized, there's no unity. In any group or cause, unity can be hard to find and maintain.
Vocabulary lists containing unity
Power Prefix: uni-
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Joyous Kwanzaa! Vocabulary Worth Celebrating
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Four Power Prefixes: anti-, con-, inter-, and uni-.
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Although different neighborhoods backed different teams, there was an air of unity in the stadium and at watch-parties that hadn’t been felt for a while.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
Asked about the row, Zelensky acknowledged the two sides were barely on speaking terms, saying he had made the change for the sake of "unity".
From Barron's ● Jul. 16, 2026
"Only through unity can we move forward with reconstruction and maintain peace," Jorge Rodríguez's brief statement said.
From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2026
Maybe, I don’t know, maybe they’re trying to get to me, and in a way they did, because there was tremendous unity in that room.”
From Salon ● Jul. 14, 2026
Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity.
From "Krik? Krak!" by Edwidge Danticat
Like Zivkovic’s other novels and stories, “The White Room” is artfully constructed — it observes the classical unities of time, place and action — and enchantingly mysterious.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 1, 2022
They gave you, rather, a strong sense that there are obscure or even invisible unities that powerfully structure the reality we perceive.
From New York Times ● Jul. 10, 2020
They said, "Don’t worry about the facts, don’t worry about logic, think instead in terms of mystical unities and direct connections between the mystical leader and the people."
From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2018
They are creators of the image who risk the image, creators of experience who provoke the very notion of experience, creators of worlds who fill them with divergences rather than unities, questions rather than verities.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 11, 2014
Although even a scholar in 1561 would have been unable to define the unities or decorum, he would have had some confused notion of them.
From Tragedy by Thorndike, Ashley H.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.