different between single vs instrumental

English

Etymology

From Middle English single, sengle, from Old French sengle, saingle, sangle, from Latin singulus, a diminutive derived from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one”). Akin to Latin simplex (“simple”). See simple, and compare singular.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s????l/
• Rhymes: -????l

Adjective

single (not comparable)

1. Not accompanied by anything else; one in number.

2. Not divided in parts.

3. Designed for the use of only one.

4. Performed by one person, or one on each side.
5. Not married or (in modern times) not involved in a romantic relationship without being married or not dating anyone exclusively.
6. (botany) Having only one rank or row of petals.
7. (obsolete) Simple and honest; sincere, without deceit.
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Luke 11:

     Therefore, when thyne eye is single: then is all thy boddy full off light. Butt if thyne eye be evyll: then shall all thy body be full of darknes?
8. Uncompounded; pure; unmixed.
   • 1725, Isaac Watts, Logick, or The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth With a Variety of Rules to Guard

     simple ideas are opposed to complex , and single ideas to compound.

   • 1867, William Greenough Thayer Shedd, Homiletics, and Pastoral Theology (page 166)

     The most that is required is, that the passage of Scripture, selected as the foundation of the sacred oration, should, like the oration itself, be single, full, and unsuperfluous in its character.

9. (obsolete) Simple; foolish; weak; silly.

   • He utters such single matter in so infantly a voice.

Synonyms

• (not accompanied by anything else): lone, sole
• (not divided in parts): unbroken, undivided, uniform
• (not married): unmarried, available

Antonyms

• (not married): divorced, married, widowed, taken
• (not single, in a relationship, but with separate households): living apart together, LAT

Derived terms

Related terms

• singular
• singularity
• singularly

Translations

Noun

single (plural singles)

1. (music) A 45 RPM vinyl record with one song on side A and one on side B.

   Antonym: album

2. (music) A popular song released and sold (on any format) nominally on its own though usually having at least one extra track.

3. One who is not married or does not have a romantic partner.

   Antonym: married

4. (cricket) A score of one run.
5. (baseball) A hit in baseball where the batter advances to first base.
6. (dominoes) A tile that has a different value (i.e. number of pips) at each end.
7. A bill valued at $1.

8. (Britain) A one-way ticket.
9. (Canadian football) A score of one point, awarded when a kicked ball is dead within the non-kicking team's end zone or has exited that end zone. Officially known in the rules as a rouge.
10. (tennis, chiefly in the plural) A game with one player on each side, as in tennis.
11. One of the reeled filaments of silk, twisted without doubling to give them firmness.
12. (Britain, Scotland, dialect) A handful of gleaned grain.
13. (computing, programming) A floating-point number having half the precision of a double-precision value.

    Coordinate term: double

    • 2011, Rubin H. Landau, A First Course in Scientific Computing (page 214)

      If you want to be a scientist or an engineer, learn to say “no” to singles and floats.

14. (film) A shot of only one character.
    • 1990, Jon Boorstin, The Hollywood Eye: What Makes Movies Work (page 94)

      But if the same scene is shot in singles (or “over-the-shoulder” shots where one of the actors is only a lumpy shoulder in the foreground), the editor and the director can almost redirect the scene on film.

Derived terms

• cassingle
• lead single
• singles bar
• split single
• CD single

Translations

See also

• baseball
• cricket

Verb

single (third-person singular simple present singles, present participle singling, simple past and past participle singled)

1. To identify or select one member of a group from the others; generally used with out, either to single out or to single (something) out.
   • 1915, Austen Chamberlain, speech on April 16, 1915

     Sir John French says that if he is to single out one regiment in the fighting at Ypres it is the Worcesters he would name? I do plead that some person should record these events, so that our history, national and local, may be the richer for them, that the children may be stimulated to do their duty by the knowledge of the way in which our soldiers are doing theirs to-day.

2. (baseball) To get a hit that advances the batter exactly one base.

3. (agriculture) To thin out.
   • 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 7

     Paul went joyfully, and spent the afternoon helping to hoe or to single turnips with his friend.

4. (of a horse) To take the irregular gait called singlefoot.
   • 1860, William S. Clark, Massachusetts Agricultural College Annual Report

     Many very fleet horses, when overdriven, adopt a disagreeable gait, which seems to be a cross between a pace and a trot, in which the two legs of one side are raised almost but not quite, simultaneously. Such horses are said to single, or to be single-footed.

5. To sequester; to withdraw; to retire.
   • 1594, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

     an agent singling itself from consorts

6. To take alone, or one by one.
   • 1594, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

     men […] commendable when they are singled

7. To reduce a railway to single track.

Derived terms

• single out

Translations

See also

References

• single in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “single”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• Nigels, glinse, ingles

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from English single.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central) IPA^(key): /?si?.??l/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /?si?.?el/

Noun

single m (plural singles)

1. (music) single

Further reading

• “single” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “single” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “single” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English single.

Pronunciation

• (music record or track): IPA^(key): /?s??.?l/, /?s??.??l/
• ((person) without romantic partner): IPA^(key): /?s??.??l/
• Hyphenation: sin?gle

Noun

single m (plural singles, diminutive singletje n)

1. A single (short music record, e.g. 45 RPM vinyl with an A side and a B side; main track of such a record).
2. A single (person without a romantic partner).

Derived terms

• debuutsingle
• hitsingle

Adjective

single (not comparable)

1. single (without a romantic partner)

Inflection

Finnish

Etymology

Borrowed from English single.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?si?le/, [?s?i?le?]
• Rhymes: -i?le
• Syllabification: sing?le

Noun

single

1. single (45 rpm record; track nominally released on its own)

Declension

See also

• pitkäsoitto

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English single.

Noun

single m or f (invariable)

1. single, loner (person who lives alone and has no emotional ties)

Adjective

single (invariable)

1. single (unmarried, not in a relationship)

   Synonym: (formal) celibe

Norwegian Bokmål

Alternative forms

• singel

Etymology

Borrowed from English single and singles.

Noun

single m (definite singular singlen, indefinite plural singler, definite plural singlene)

1. (music) a single (record or CD)
2. (sports) singles (e.g. in tennis)

Synonyms

• singelplate (record)

References

• “single” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Alternative forms

• singel

Etymology

Borrowed from English single and singles.

Noun

single m (definite singular singlen, indefinite plural singlar, definite plural singlane)

1. (music) a single (record or CD)
2. (sports) singles (e.g. in tennis)

Synonyms

• singelplate (record)

References

• “single” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English single.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /?s?.?ow/

Noun

single m (plural singles)

1. (music) single (song released on its own or with an extra track)

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English single. Doublet of sendos.

Noun 1

single m (plural singles)

1. single (song released)

Noun 2

single m or f (plural singles)

1. single, single person

English

Etymology

From Middle English instrumental, instrumentale, from Medieval Latin instrumentalis, from instruere (“to build into, set up, construct, furnish", hence "to train”), from in- (“on”) + struere (“to put together, arrange, pile up, build, construct”), from Proto-Indo-European *strew- (“to spread, to strew”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?nst???m?nt?l/, /?nst???m?nt?l/

Adjective

instrumental (comparative more instrumental, superlative most instrumental)

1. essential or central; of great importance or relevance.
   • 2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 2, 51:

     Few songwriters have been as instrumental in creating the mold for American music.
2. (music) Pertaining to, made by, or prepared for, an instrument, especially a musical instrument (rather than the human voice).
   • 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second

     He defended the use of instrumental music in public worship.

   • c. 1700, John Dryden, Cymon and Iphigenia

     Sweet voices mix'd with instrumental sounds.

3. (grammar) Applied to a case expressing means or agency, generally indicated in English by by or with with the objective.

   the instrumental case

Antonyms

• noninstrumental

Coordinate terms

• (serving as a means): final
• (music): vocal, a capella

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

instrumental (plural instrumentals)

1. (grammar) The instrumental case.
2. (music) A composition written or performed without lyrics, sometimes using a lead instrument to replace vocals.
   • 1977, Stereo Review (volume 38, page 70)

     I recommend this album in the face of the fact that five of the eleven songs are the purest filler, dull instrumentals with a harmonica rifling over an indifferent rhythm section. The rest is magnificent […]

Translations

Further reading

• instrumental in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• instrumental in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Catalan

Adjective

instrumental (masculine and feminine plural instrumentals)

1. instrumental

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??s.t?y.m??.tal/

Adjective

instrumental (feminine singular instrumentale, masculine plural instrumentaux, feminine plural instrumentales)

1. instrumental

Noun

instrumental m (plural instrumentaux)

1. (grammar) instrumental, instrumental case

See also

• accusatif
• génitif
• locatif
• nominatif
• vocatif

Further reading

• “instrumental” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

German

Etymology

From French instrumental. Equivalent to Instrument +? -al.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -a?l

Adjective

instrumental (not comparable)

1. (music) instrumental

Declension

Antonyms

• nichtinstrumental

Further reading

• “instrumental” in Duden online

Middle English

Alternative forms

• instrumentale, instrumentall

Etymology

From Medieval Latin instrumentalis; equivalent to instrument +? -al.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /instriu?m?n?ta?l/, /instru?m?ntal/

Adjective

instrumental (rare)

1. Resembling an instrument in role; instrumental (serving as a means)
2. Resembling an instrument in use (i.e. being used as a tool)
3. Resembling a (specific kind of) instrument in appearance.

Descendants

• English: instrumental

References

• “instr??ment?l, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-09-12.

Portuguese

Adjective

instrumental m or f (plural instrumentais, comparable)

1. (music) instrumental (having no singing)
2. (grammar) instrumental (pertaining to the instrumental case)

Noun

instrumental m (plural instrumentais)

1. (uncountable, grammar) instrumental (grammatical case)
2. (countable, music) instrumental (composition without singing)

Romanian

Etymology

From French instrumental.

Adjective

instrumental m or n (feminine singular instrumental?, masculine plural instrumentali, feminine and neuter plural instrumentale)

1. instrumental

Declension

Serbo-Croatian

Noun

?nstrument?l m (Cyrillic spelling ??????????????)

1. the instrumental case
2. (music) a composition made for instruments only or a (version of some) song in which only the instruments are heard

Declension

Slovene

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /í?nstrum?ntal/, /instrum?ntá?l/

Noun

?nstrumental or instrument?l m inan

1. (grammar) instrumental case

   Synonym: orodnik

2. (music) instrumental music

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Spanish

Adjective

instrumental (plural instrumentales)

1. instrumental

Derived terms

• caso instrumental