Singleton Meaning
/ˈsɪŋ.ɡ(ə)l.tən/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA playing card that is the only one of its suit in a hand, especially at bridge.
nounA hand containing only one card of a certain suit.
Sentence Examples
The code uses a singleton pattern to manage the database connection.
A singleton is a thing that is the only one of its kind.
The researcher identified a singleton pattern in the database.
CEFR Practice Quiz
In the card game, the player was left with a ____, a single card in their hand.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
In software design, a ____ is a pattern that restricts a class to only one instance.
Word Origin & History
From single + -ton, probably following the model of simpleton.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Viable non-malformed singleton pregnancies were selected for cerebellar measurements; transcerebellar diameter, (TCD), left and right cerebellar diameters (LCD, RCD)."
— 2015 October 23, “Periconception Maternal Folate Status and Human Embryonic Cerebellum Growth Trajectories: The Rotterdam Predict Study”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI:
"The time draws near when pink and red creep insidiously into the periphery, jewelry retailers go into overdrive and drugstore aisles burst with cherubs for the one holiday of the year that separates the singletons from the significant-othered."
— 2012 February 11, Katie Gile, “I hate/love Valentine’s Day”, in Spinnaker, Jacksonville, Fla.: University of North Florida, archived from the original on 18 Sep 2020:
"Millennials and Gen Zedders’ approach to romance can teach later-life singletons a thing or two about new relationships, according to dating agent Anna Williamson."
— 2022 August 14, “Lessons in love”, in The Sunday People:
"[…] she busied herself in the front room, rustling about in Anne Kellaway’s box of buttony materials filled with rings of various sizes, chips of sheep horn for the Singletons, a ball of flax for shaping round buttons, bits of linen for covering them, both sharp and blunt needles, and several different colors and thicknesses of thread."
— 2007, Tracy Chevalier, Burning Bright, New York: Dutton, Part 4, Chapter 4, p. 126:
"Graphs with diameter d and girth 2d#43;1 are known as Moore graphs. They were introduced by Hoffman and Singleton in a paper that can be viewed as one of the prime sources of algebraic graph theory."
— 2013, Chris Godsil, Gordon F. Royle, Algebraic Graph Theory, Springer, page 77:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
In the card game, the player was left with a ____, a single card in their hand.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
In software design, a ____ is a pattern that restricts a class to only one instance.