different between single vs open

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ?'p?n, IPA^(key): /???.p?n/
• (US) enPR: ?'p?n, IPA^(key): /?o?.p?n/
• Rhymes: -??p?n

Etymology 1

From Middle English open, from Old English open (“open”), from Proto-Germanic *upanaz (“open”), from Proto-Indo-European *upo (“up from under, over”). Cognate with Scots apen (“open”), Saterland Frisian eepen (“open”), West Frisian iepen (“open”), Dutch open (“open”), Low German open, apen (“open”), German offen (“open”), Danish åben (“open”), Swedish öppen (“open”), Norwegian Bokmål åpen (“open”), Norwegian Nynorsk open (“open”), Icelandic opinn (“open”). Compare also Latin supinus (“on one's back, supine”), Albanian hap (“to open”). Related to up.

Adjective

open (comparative more open, superlative most open)

1. (not comparable) Not closed
   1. able to be accessed
   2. able to have something pass through or along it.
      • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Chapter 2

        The open road, the dusty highway […]

   3. (of a body part) not covered, showing what is inside

2. Not physically drawn together, closed, folded or contracted; extended

   • Each, with open arms, embraced her chosen knight.

3. (not comparable) Actively conducting or prepared to conduct business.
4. (comparable) Receptive.
5. (not comparable) Public
6. (not comparable) Candid, ingenuous, not subtle in character.
   • 1731-1735, Alexander Pope, Moral Essays

     with aspect open, shall erect his head

   • The French are always open, familiar, and talkative.

7. (mathematics, logic, of a formula) Having a free variable.
8. (mathematics, topology, of a set) Which is part of a predefined collection of subsets of ${\displaystyle X}$, that defines a topological space on ${\displaystyle X}$.
9. (graph theory, of a walk) Whose first and last vertices are different.
10. (computing, not comparable, of a file, document, etc.) In current use; mapped to part of memory.

11. (business) Not fulfilled.

12. Not settled or adjusted; not decided or determined; not closed or withdrawn from consideration.

13. (music, stringed instruments) Of a note, played without pressing the string against the fingerboard.
14. (music, wind instruments) Of a note, played without closing any finger-hole, key or valve.
15. Not of a quality to prevent communication, as by closing waterways, blocking roads, etc.; hence, not frosty or inclement; mild; used of the weather or the climate.

16. (law, of correspondence) Written or sent with the intention that it may made public or referred to at any trial, rather than by way of confidential private negotiation for a settlement.

17. (phonetics) Uttered with a relatively wide opening of the articulating organs; said of vowels.
18. (phonetics) Uttered, as a consonant, with the oral passage simply narrowed without closure.
19. (phonetics, of a syllable) That ends in a vowel; not having a coda.
20. (computing, education) Made public, usable with a free licence and without proprietary components.
21. (medicine) Resulting from an incision, puncture or any other process by which the skin no longer protects an internal part of the body.
22. (computing, used before "code") Source code of a computer program that is not within the text of a macro being generated.

Synonyms

• (not closed): accessible, unimpeded
• (ending in a vowel): free
• (with a free license and no proprietary components): free

Antonyms

• (accessible): closed, shut
• (law): without prejudice
• (ending in a vowel): closed, checked
• (with a free license and no proprietary components): closed-source, proprietary

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English openen, from Old English openian (“to open”), from Proto-Germanic *upan?n? (“to raise; lift; open”), from Proto-Germanic *upanaz (“open”, adjective). Cognate with Saterland Frisian eepenje (“to open”), West Frisian iepenje (“to open”), Dutch openen (“to open”), German öffnen (“to open”), Danish åbne (“to open”), Swedish öppna (“to open”), Norwegian Bokmål åpne (“to open”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Icelandic opna (“to open”). Related to English up.

Verb

open (third-person singular simple present opens, present participle opening, simple past and past participle opened)

1. (transitive) To make something accessible or allow for passage by moving from a shut position.

2. (transitive) To make (an open space, etc.) by clearing away an obstacle or obstacles, in order to allow for passage, access, or visibility.

3. (transitive) To bring up, broach.

4. (transitive) To enter upon, begin.

5. (transitive) To spread; to expand into an open or loose position.

6. (transitive) To make accessible to customers or clients.

7. (transitive) To start (a campaign).

8. (intransitive) To become open.

9. (intransitive) To begin conducting business.

10. (intransitive, cricket) To begin a side's innings as one of the first two batsmen.
11. (intransitive, poker) To bet before any other player has in a particular betting round in a game of poker.

12. (transitive, intransitive, poker) To reveal one's hand.

13. (computing, transitive, intransitive, of a file, document, etc.) To load into memory for viewing or editing.
14. (obsolete) To disclose; to reveal; to interpret; to explain.
    • 1622, Francis Bacon, The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh

      The king opened himself to some of his council, that he was sorry for the earl's death.

Synonyms

• (to make accessible): unseal
• (to bring up): raise
• (to enter upon): start; see also Thesaurus:begin
• (to disclose): bare; see also Thesaurus:reveal

Hyponyms

• (to make accessible): crack (open a bit)

Antonyms

• (to make accessible): bare, shut

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English open (“an aperture or opening”), from the verb (see Etymology 2 above). In the sports sense, however, a shortening of “open competition”.

Noun

open (plural opens)

1. (with the) Open or unobstructed space; an exposed location.

2. (with the) Public knowledge or scrutiny; full view.

3. (electronics) A defect in an electrical circuit preventing current from flowing.

4. A sports event in which anybody can compete

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• Nope, nope, peno-, peon, pone

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch openen, from Middle Dutch ?penen, from Old Dutch opanon, from Proto-Germanic *upan?n?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /????.p?n/

Verb

open (present open, present participle openende, past participle geopen)

1. (transitive) to open

Related terms

• oop

Catalan

Etymology

From English open.

Noun

open m (plural open or òpens)

1. (sports) open

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?o?.p?(n)/
• Hyphenation: open
• Rhymes: -o?p?n

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch ?pen, from Old Dutch opan, from Proto-Germanic *upanaz.

Adjective

open (comparative opener, superlative openst)

1. open, not closed

   Antonyms: gesloten, dicht, toe

2. open for business

   Antonyms: gesloten, dicht

3. open, receptive

   Antonym: gesloten

Inflection

Antonyms

• gesloten

Derived terms

• openbaar
• openbaren
• openen
• opener
• opening
• openlijk

Descendants

• Afrikaans: oop

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Verb

open

1. first-person singular present indicative of openen
2. imperative of openen

Anagrams

• nope

Finnish

Noun

open

1. genitive singular of ope

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English open.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?.p?n/

Noun

open m (plural opens)

1. open; open tournament

Further reading

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

Middle Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch opan, from Proto-Germanic *upanaz.

Adjective

?pen

1. open, not closed
2. open, accessible
3. freely accessible, public

Inflection

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

Derived terms

• ?penen

Descendants

• Dutch: open
  • Afrikaans: oop
• Limburgish: aop

Further reading

• “open”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929) , “open (II)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, ?ISBN, page II

Middle English

Alternative forms

• opyn, ope

Etymology

From Old English open, from Proto-Germanic *upanaz.

Adjective

open (comparative more open, superlative most open)

1. open
   • 14th c. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales. General Prologue: 9-11.

     And smale foweles maken melodye,

     That slepen al the nyght with open eye-

     (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);

     And many little birds make melody

     That sleep through all the night with open eye

     (So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)

Related terms

• open-ers
• openly

Descendants

• English: open (obsolete ope)
• Scots: appen, apen

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Old Norse opinn, from Proto-Germanic *upanaz. Compare Danish åben, Icelandic opinn, Swedish öppen, Dutch open, Low German apen, open, German offen, West Frisian iepen, English open.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /²o?p?n/

Adjective

open (masculine and feminine open, neuter ope or opent, definite singular and plural opne, comparative opnare, indefinite superlative opnast, definite superlative opnaste)

1. open

Related terms

• opna, opne

See also

• åpen (Bokmål)

References

• “open” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *upanaz. Originally a past participle of Proto-Germanic *?pan? (“to lift up, open”). Akin to Old English ?p (“up”). Cognate with Old Frisian open, opin, epen (West Frisian iepen), Old Saxon opan, open (Low German apen, open), Dutch open, Old High German offan, ofan, ophan (German offen), Old Norse opinn (Danish åben, Norwegian open, Swedish öppen).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?o.pen/

Adjective

open

1. open

Declension

Derived terms

• openl??

Descendants

• Middle English: open, opyn, ope
  • Scots: appen, apen
  • English: open

Plautdietsch

Adjective

open

1. open

Spanish

Etymology

From English open.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?open/, [?o.p?n]

Noun

open m (plural opens or open)

1. (sports) open