nonpareil

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See also: non-pareil

English

WOTD – 12 March 2021

Etymology

A blue underwing or Clifden nonpareil (Catocala fraxini; noun sense 2.1).
An eastern rosella (Platycercus eximius) photographed in Kangaroo Flat, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. It was formerly known as a nonpareil (noun sense 2.2).
Nonpareil (noun sense 2.3) is also the name given in the USA to the painted bunting (Passerina ciris), this one a male photographed in Merritt Island, Florida, USA.
An illustration of a nonpareil apple (noun sense 2.4).
The word “nonpareil” refers to both the small pellets of white or coloured sugar used as decoration on baked goods and candy (noun sense 3.2), and to the chocolate drop which is covered with these pellets (noun sense 3.3).
A jar of nonpareil capers (noun sense 3.4).
A sample of the Clarendon typeface. Type of the nonpareil size (noun sense 4) is shown in the first line.

From Late Middle English non-parail (“unparalleled, nonpareil”) ,[1] from Middle French nonpareille, nonpareil (“unparalleled”) (obsolete), from non- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + pareil (“alike, like, same”).[2] Pareil is derived from Old French pareil, from Late Latin pāriculus (“equal; like; of a number: even”), from Latin pār (“equal; like; of a number: even; suitable”) + -culus (a variant of -ulus (suffix forming diminutives)). Doublet of umpire.

Noun sense 4 (size of type standardized at 6-point) is usually taken to derive from the attractive type cut by the brothers Giovanni and Gregorio De Gregori (fl. 1482–1503 and 1496–1527 respectively) for their 1498 edition of the divine offices in Venice; it was for a long time the smallest-sized type in use.

Pronunciation

Adjective

nonpareil (comparative more nonpareil, superlative most nonpareil)

  1. (frequently postpositive) Unequalled, unrivalled; unique.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:unique
    Antonyms: see Thesaurus:common
    • 1919, O. Henry, “Transients in Arcadia”, in The Voice of the City‎:
      He informed the clerk that he would remain three or four days, inquired concerning the sailing of European steamships, and sank into the blissful inanition of the nonpareil hotel with the contented air of a traveller in his favorite inn.
    • 1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest , Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 33:
      A veritable artist, possessed of a deftness nonpareil with cotton swab and evacuation-hypo, the medical attaché is known among the shrinking upper classes of petro-Arab nations as the DeBakey of maxillofacial yeast […]
    • 2017 March 22, Kathryn Shattuck, “‘Harlots,’ on Hulu, Has Sex. But Settle Down, Guys.”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:
      […] the series stars Samantha Morton as Margaret Wells, a London brothel owner; Ms. Brown Findlay as Charlotte, her older daughter and the city’s courtesan nonpareil; […]

Alternative forms

Translations

Noun

nonpareil (countable and uncountable, plural nonpareils)

  1. (countable) A person or thing that has no equal; a paragon.
    • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
      My lord and master loves you. O, such love / Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd / The nonpareil of beauty!
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: , 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition III, section 2, member 2, subsection ii:
      King John of France, once prisoner in England, came […] to see the Countess of Salisbury, the nonpareil of those times, and his dear mistress.
    • 1901, Edmund Selous, Bird Watching, p. 240:
      (a wren) crept or crawled, just like a true tree-creeper. I was, as I say, quite close, and watched it most attentively. It certainly—as far as good looking can settle it—did not assist itself with the wings. They remained close against the sides, or, if they moved at all, it was imperceptible to my eyes (which, by the way, are non-pareils).
  2. (countable, biology)
    1. The blue underwing or Clifden nonpareil (Catocala fraxini), a species of moth distributed across the Palearctic; also (obsolete) any of a number of moths of other species.
    2. (chiefly Australia, archaic) In full nonpareil parrot: an eastern rosella, of species Platycercus eximius, a rosella (parrot) native to southeastern Australia.
    3. (chiefly US) A painted bunting (Passerina ciris), a brightly-coloured finch native to North America.
    4. (archaic) In full nonpareil apple: an apple tasting both sweet and tart which ripens very late in the season; also, the tree producing this fruit.
  3. (countable, chiefly US, cooking)
    1. (archaic) Any of various types of small sweets.
    2. (by extension, dated) A small pellet of white or coloured sugar used as decoration on baked goods and candy.
      Synonyms: (Australia, Britain, plural only) hundreds and thousands, (US) sprinkles
    3. (by extension) A small, flat chocolate drop covered with such pellets of sugar, similar to a comfit.
    4. (by extension) A caper (“pickled edible flower bud”) of the smallest size.
  4. (uncountable, typography, chiefly historical) A size of type between ruby and emerald (or, in the United States, between agate and minion), standardized as 6-point; (countable) a slug of this size.
    Synonym: (in European contexts) nonpareille
    • 1881 May 19, Hermann Cohn, “Eyes and School-Books”, in Popular Science Monthly:
      I believe that letters which are less than a millimetre and a half (1/17 inch) high, will finally prove injurious to the eye. How little attention has hitherto been paid to this important subject is exemplified in the fact that even oculistic journals and books frequently contain nonpareil, or letters only a millimetre (1/25 inch) high.
    • 1922 February, James Joyce, “”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, , →OCLC:
      A Handbook of Astronomy (cover, brown leather, detached, 5 plates, antique letterpress long primer, author’s footnotes nonpareil, marginal clues brevier, captions small pica).

Alternative forms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “nōn-parail, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “nonpareil, adj. and n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2003; “nonpareil, adj. and n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Anagrams

French

Adjective

nonpareil (feminine nonpareile, masculine plural nonpareils, feminine plural nonpareiles)

  1. (archaic) unequalled

Further reading

Middle French

Alternative forms

Adjective

nonpareil m (feminine singular nonpareille, masculine plural nonpareils, feminine plural nonpareilles)

  1. unparallelled; unprecedented

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French nonpareille.

Noun

nonpareil n (uncountable)

  1. nonpareil

Declension

declension of nonpareil (singular only)
singular
n gender indefinite articulation definite articulation
nominative/accusative (un) nonpareil nonpareilul
genitive/dative (unui) nonpareil nonpareilului
vocative nonpareilule
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