one

Alternative forms

• wone, o (both obsolete)
• (Arabic numeral): 1 (see for numerical forms in other scripts)
• (Roman numeral): I

Etymology

From Middle English one, oon, on, oan, an, from Old English ān (“one”), from Proto-Germanic *ainaz (“one”), from Proto-Indo-European *óynos (“single, one”). Cognate with Scots ae, ane, wan, yin (“one”); North Frisian ån (“one”); Saterland Frisian aan (“one”); West Frisian ien (“one”); Dutch een, één (“one”); German Low German een; German ein, eins (“one”); Swedish en (“one”); Icelandic einn (“one”); Latin ūnus (“one”) (Old Latin oinos); Russian оди́н (odín). Use as indefinite personal pronoun influenced by unrelated French on.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /wʌn/, [wɐn]
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /wan/, [wän]

• Audio

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

  • Homophone: won (Etymology 1)
• (UK) IPA^(key): /wɒn/
  • Rhymes: -ɒn
  • Homophone: won (Etymology 3)
• (US) enPR: wŭn, IPA^(key): /wʌn/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

  • Rhymes: -ʌn
  • Homophone: won (Etymology 1)

Numeral

one

1. (cardinal) The number represented by the Arabic numeral 1; the numerical value equal to that cardinal number.

   In some religions, there is only one god.

   In many cultures, a baby turns one year old a year after its birth.

   One person, one vote.

   • 1912, Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage, Chapter 8

     Venters began to count them—one—two—three—four—on up to sixteen.

2. (number theory) The first positive number in the set of natural numbers.
3. (set theory) The cardinality of the smallest nonempty set.
4. (mathematics) The ordinality of an element which has no predecessor, usually called first or number one.

Pronoun

one (reflexive oneself, possessive adjective one’s, plural ones)

1. (impersonal pronoun) One thing (among a group of others); one member of a group.

   The big one looks good.  I want the green one.  A good driver is one who drives carefully.

2. (impersonal pronoun, sometimes with "the") The first mentioned of two things or people, as opposed to the other.

   She offered him an apple and an orange; he took one and left the other.

   • 1699, William Temple, Heads designed for an essay on conversations

     Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.

3. (indefinite personal pronoun) Any person (applying to people in general).

   One’s guilt may trouble one, but it is best not to let oneself be troubled by things which cannot be changed.  One shouldn’t be too quick to judge.

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], OCLC 752825175, page 048:

     It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 2, in The Mirror and the Lamp‎:

     She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, […] — all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess‎:

     ‘It's rather like a beautiful Inverness cloak one has inherited. Much too good to hide away, so one wears it instead of an overcoat and pretends it's an amusing new fashion.’

   • 1992, Rudolf M. Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, page vii

     With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get […].

   • 2013 September 6, Philip Hoare, “If we're all Martians, who are the aliens?”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 13, page 48:

     One has to admire the sheer optimism of modern science: I love the fact that there is such a discipline as astrobiology, whose practitioners' task is to imagine what life might be like on other planets. Yet here on the home planet we have profoundly strange aliens of our own.

4. (pronoun) Any person, entity or thing.

   "driver", noun: one who drives.

Noun

one (plural ones)

1. The digit or figure 1.
2. (mathematics) The neutral element with respect to multiplication in a ring.
3. (US) A one-dollar bill.
4. (cricket) One run scored by hitting the ball and running between the wickets; a single.
5. A joke or amusing anecdote.
   • Did you hear the one about the agnostic dyslexic insomniac?
6. (colloquial) A particularly special or compatible person or thing.
   • I knew as soon I met him that John was the one for me and we were married within a month.
   • That car's the one — I'll buy it.
   • 1995, Bryan Adams, Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?

     When you love a woman then tell her

     that she's really wanted

     When you love a woman then tell her that she's the one

     'cause she needs somebody to tell her

     that it's gonna last forever

7. (Internet slang, leetspeak, sarcastic) Used instead of ! to amplify an exclamation, parodying unskilled typists who forget to press the shift key while typing exclamation points, thus typing "1".

   A: SUM1 Hl3p ME im alwyz L0ziN!!?!

   Someone help me; I'm always losing!

   B: y d0nt u just g0 away l0zer!!1!!one!!one!!eleven!!1!

   Why don't you just go away loser!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   • 2003 September 26, "DEAL WITH IT!!!!11one!!", in alt.games.video.nintendo.gamecube, Usenet
   • 2004 November 9, "AWK sound recorder!!!11!!11one", in comp.lang.awk, Usenet
   • 2007 December 1, "STANFORD!!1!!1!one!11!!1oneone!1!1!", in rec.sport.football.college, Usenet

Adjective

one (not comparable)

1. Of a period of time, being particular.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:

     One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.

   One day the prince set forth to kill the dragon that had brought terror to his father’s kingdom for centuries.

2. Being a single, unspecified thing; a; any.

   My aunt used to say, "One day is just like the other."

3. Sole, only.

   He is the one man who can help you.

4. Whole, entire.

   Body and soul are not separate; they are one.

5. In agreement.

   We are one on the importance of learning.

6. The same.

   The two types look very different, but are one species.

7. Being a preeminent example.

   He is one hell of a guy.

8. Being an unknown person with the specified name; see also "a certain".

   The town records from 1843 showed the overnight incarceration of one “A. Lincoln”.

Derived terms

Verb

one (third-person singular simple present ones, present participle oning, simple past and past participle oned)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To cause to become one; to gather into a single whole; to unite.
   • Chaucer

     The rich folk that embraced and oned all their heart to treasure of the world.

See also

• Table of cardinal numbers 0 to 9 in various languages

Anagrams

• EON, NEO, Neo, eno-, eon, neo, neo-

Verb

one

1. to hunt

References

• Greenhill, S.J., Blust. R, & Gray, R.D. (2008). The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics. Evolutionary Bioinformatics, 4:271-283.

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *qone, from Proto-Austronesian *qənay.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈo.ne/

Noun

one

1. sand

Romanization

one

1. Rōmaji transcription of おね

Noun

one

1. water

References

• Anales: Sección historico-filosófica (Museo de Historia Natural de Montevideo), volume 1 (2), part 1

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *qone, from Proto-Austronesian *qənay.

Noun

one

1. sand

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *qone, from Proto-Austronesian *qənay.

Noun

one

1. beach, sand, soil

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *qone, from Proto-Austronesian *qənay.

Noun

one

1. sand
2. gunpowder

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *ony, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eno-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɔ.nɛ/

• Audio

  (file)

Pronoun

one pl

1. nominative plural of ona; they; nonvirile third-person plural pronoun, used for all groups not containing men

Further reading

• one in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *qone, from Proto-Austronesian *qənay.

Noun

one

1. sand

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *qone, from Proto-Austronesian *qənay.

Noun

one

1. sand

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *ony, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eno-

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ǒne/
• Hyphenation: o‧ne

Pronoun

òne (Cyrillic spelling о̀не)

1. they (nominative plural of òna (“she”)); nonvirile third-person plural pronoun, used for all groups not containing men
2. masculine plural accusative of onaj

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɔ̀ːnɛ/
• Tonal orthography: óne

Pronoun

ône

1. they (feminine plural, more than two)

See also

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *qone, from Proto-Austronesian *qənay.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɔ.ne/

Noun

one

1. sand
2. dust

References

• “one” in Dictionnaire en ligne Tahitien/Français (Online Tahitian–French Dictionary), by the Tahitian Academy.

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *qone, from Proto-Austronesian *qənay.

Noun

one

1. sand

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *qone, from Proto-Austronesian *qənay.

Noun

one

1. sand

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *qone, from Proto-Austronesian *qənay.

Noun

one

1. sand

Pronoun

one

1. (dative singular of on) to it