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universal

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

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Etymology

From Middle English universal, from Old French universal (modern French universel), from Latin ūniversālis, equivalent to universe +‎ -al.

Pronunciation

Adjective

universal (comparative more universal, superlative most universal)

  1. Of or pertaining to the universe.
  2. Common to all members of a group or class.
    • 1911, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:
      In Logic, the letter A is used as a symbol for the universal affirmative proposition in the general form "all x is y."
    • 1922, Henry Ford, Samuel Crowther, chapter 4, in My Life and Work, Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., →OCLC:
      I had been planning every day through these years toward a universal car.
    • 1955 January, Charles E. Lee, “The Glasgow Underground Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 24:
      Eventually, the railway opened on Monday, December 14, 1896, with a universal fare of 1d. collected at the turnstiles, and conditions were immediately chaotic, as many passengers travelled round and round, and refused to leave the cars.
    • 2022 January 30, Steve Slevinski, “Formal SignWriting”, in IETF‎, archived from the original on 30 April 2024:
      Sutton SignWriting is the universal and complete solution for written sign language, ISO 15924 script code "Sgnw".
  3. Common to all society; worldwide.
    She achieved universal fame.
    • a. 1701 (date written), John Dryden, “The Life of John Dryden, Esq.”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, […], volume I, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, […], published 1760, →OCLC, page xiii:
      [John] Dryden's univerſal genius, his firmly eſtablished reputation, and the glory his memory muſt always reflect upon the nation that gave him birth, make us ardently wiſh for a more accurate life of him than any which has hitherto appeared: […]
  4. Unlimited; vast; infinite.
  5. Useful for many purposes; all-purpose.
    universal wrench

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

See also

Noun

universal (plural universals)

  1. (philosophy) A characteristic or property that particular things have in common.
    • 1912, Bertrand Russel, The Problems of Philosophy, Chapter 9:
      When we examine common words, we find that, broadly speaking, proper names stand for particulars, while other substantives, adjectives, prepositions, and verbs stand for universals.
    • 1970, John R. Searle, Speech acts‎:
      We might also distinguish those expressions which are used to refer to individuals or particulars from those which are used to refer to what philosophers have called universals: e.g., to distinguish such expressions as "Everest" and "this chair" from "the number three", "the color red" and "drunkenness".
    • 2021, Meghan O'Gieblyn, chapter 11, in God, Human, Animal, Machine […] , →ISBN:
      Empiricism was similarly a response to this loss of universals—a radically contingent world with no underlying order must constantly be studied and tested—and made God himself unnecessary: divine spirit and human spirit were alien enough to each other that they could function without taking each other into account.

Translations

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