uniform

Pluraluniforms

Formsuniforms, uniforming, uniformed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A distinctive outfit that identifies the members of a group, such as a company, a school, or a prison population.

   Inmates received an orange uniform along with their bedding when they arrived.

   The hotel requires its bellhops to wear uniforms during every shift.

   Similaroutfit, livery

   Note

   What a uniform signifies is often clearest beside its opposite, plain clothes. F. W. Robertson observes that a soldier will do things in his plain clothes that he scorns to do in his uniform. In that line, "in his uniform" means dressed as one of the group. The same contrast gave police their word for a uniformed officer, set against the plainclothes detective.

2. 2
   adjective

   Not varying; the same in all parts or across all cases.

   The fabric has a uniform texture from edge to edge.

   Test scores were remarkably uniform across all five schools.

   Similarconsistent, even, regular, homogeneous, unvarying

   Oppositevaried, uneven, irregular, variable

   Note

   The broadest sense, and the one closest to the Latin source uniformis: of one form throughout. It describes sameness of surface, color or result, not obedience to a rule. The Railway Magazine of 1943 speaks of a uniform brown replacing chocolate and cream as railway livery. For sameness that comes from following a standard, see the "conforming" meaning.

3. 3
   adjective

   Consistent; conforming to a single standard or rule.

   Federal regulations impose uniform safety requirements on manufacturers nationwide.

   The style guide keeps formatting uniform across all company documents.

   Similarconsistent, standard, standardized, common

   Oppositeinconsistent, varied, variable

   Note

   Here sameness is imposed rather than observed: things are uniform because a rule makes them so. Richard Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1593) asks how far churches are bound to be uniform in their ceremonies. That line shows the usual construction, uniform in something. The word sits naturally beside laws, codes and requirements, where a single standard is the point.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A police officer who wears the standard uniform, as opposed to a plainclothes detective.

   The sergeant posted a uniform at each exit before the raid began.

   Detectives took over the case once the uniforms had secured the scene.

   Note

   Here the garment stands for the person who wears it. This metonymy is at home in police speech and crime fiction. It is always defined against detectives, and it is easily counted in the plural. S. J. Rozan's Concourse (1996) lines up "three uniforms and I" among the helpless watchers. In neutral prose, uniformed officer says the same thing without the shop-talk flavor.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To clothe someone in a uniform.

   Wealthy households would uniform their footmen in elaborate livery.

   The department uniforms its recruits during their first week at the academy.

   Similardress, clothe, outfit

   Note

   The verb takes an object and tends to describe outfitting a whole body of people. Robert W. Chambers's Ailsa Paige (1910) scoffs at building an army by uniforming and drilling a few hundred thousand clerks and farmers. Its past participle, uniformed, doubles as an adjective. That adjective is behind the phrase uniformed officer, which gives the police "uniform" its meaning.

6. 6
   noun

   Alternative letter-case form of Uniform from the NATO/ICAO Phonetic Alphabet.

   Tower cleared 'november uniform six' to land on runway two seven.

   The radio operator confirmed the grid square as 'uniform sierra' before sending the coordinates.

   Note

   This is a spelling variant, not a separate word: the code word of the NATO/ICAO phonetic alphabet written in lowercase. Official documentation conventionally capitalizes these code words. Lowercase appears freely when radio traffic is transcribed informally, as in a call sign written out as november uniform six. The case changes nothing about how the word is spoken or used.

7. 7
   adjective

   Of convergence or a similar limiting property: occurring at a rate that does not depend on the choice of point or argument, as in uniform continuity or uniform convergence.

   The series converges to its limit, and the convergence is uniform on the closed interval.

   Because the bound is uniform, a single choice of N works for every point at once.

   Note

   Mathematicians attach this word to properties rather than objects: uniform continuity, uniform convergence. What it fixes is the order of choice. The bound, a δ or an N, must be chosen once and then work for every point of the domain. It is not picked afresh at each point. The property is usually stated over a set, as in convergence that is uniform on a closed interval.

8. 8
   adjective

   Of a polymer or similar substance: composed of a single macromolecular species.

   Analysis showed the sample to be uniform, with every polymer chain identical in length and structure.

   Chemists prize a uniform polymer when studying how chain length affects material strength.

   Note

   IUPAC recommends this term in place of the older monodisperse, so it is the word to use in current technical writing. A uniform polymer has molecules identical in constitution and molar mass. Do not read it in the everyday "unvarying" sense. A material can look perfectly even and still fail this test unless every chain is the same molecule.

9. 9
   adjective

   Of a polyhedron, having all vertices alike and regular polygons as faces; of a higher-dimensional polytope, having all vertices alike and facets of this kind.

   The truncated icosahedron is uniform, with one pentagon and two hexagons meeting at every vertex.

   Prisms with square sides and regular ends count among the uniform polyhedra.

   Note

   Geometry asks less of uniformity than the everyday word suggests. Every vertex must look like every other, but the faces need not match. The truncated icosahedron mixes pentagons and hexagons and is still uniform, because each face is a regular polygon. Above three dimensions the definition calls on itself: the facets must be uniform polytopes one dimension down.

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