unit
Pluralunits
Pluralunits
- 1An organized group made up of people, equipment, or both, working together as a single body.
The hospital set up a special unit to treat burn victims.
Several units combined their efforts to clean up the chemical spill.
Similarteam, department, section, division, group
- 2
- 3A self-contained home for one household, such as an apartment within a multi-story building or a dwelling in a complex of homes.
The new complex offers forty units, each with its own balcony.
She bought a one-bedroom unit on the third floor.
Similarapartment, flat, dwelling
Note
Housing is counted in these when the question is how many households a property holds: a complex with 50 units has room for 50, whatever the size of each. The word stretches from an apartment in a multi-story block to one of a cluster of single-story dwellings set around a shared driveway. What makes each a unit is that it houses one household.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Fifty housing units provide accommodation for fifty households. census.gov
- Housing units can differ in size. census.gov
- 4A standard quantity used to measure, count, or issue something, allowing amounts to be consistently expressed and compared.
Every measurement must state its unit, or the number means nothing.
The international system defines base units such as the meter and the kilogram.
UsageUsually a unit of plus the kind of quantity: a unit of length, a unit of currency. Amounts are given in units.
Similarmeasure
Note
The word names the yardstick, never the thing measured: a length is expressed in units.
- 5A group of military personnel with its own equipment and command, organized as a distinct part of a larger armed force, such as a reserve formation or a subdivision of a task force.
The commander ordered the unit to hold its position overnight.
Several units were combined to form a single task force.
Similardetachment, formation
Note
Here the word is a formal term of military organization rather than casual speech. A unit is any element whose shape is laid down by competent authority, typically in a table of organization and equipment. That makes it a relative term: a unit is always part of something larger, and units combine into bigger ones. It is the official counterpart of the informal word for one member.
- 6A single item that can be sold by itself rather than only as part of a set or package.
Sales rose after the company cut the price of each unit.
The warehouse stores thousands of units ready for shipping.
UsageGoes with trade verbs: sell, ship, move or stock units.
Note
Commerce counts what it sells this way. To ship, sell or move units means individual items, whatever they happen to be, so a single report can add up phones, sofas and tins of soup on one scale. It is also the noun behind the adjective in unit price.
- 7Calculated or charged for each individual item or measure.
Shoppers check the unit price to find the better deal.
The contract sets a fixed unit rate for every ton delivered.
UsageUsed before a noun: unit price, unit cost, unit rate.
Note
Its natural contrast is with totals: keeping unit costs down is a different goal from keeping total costs down.
- 8Having a size or magnitude of exactly one.
A unit vector has a magnitude of exactly one.
Mathematicians often work with the unit circle, whose radius equals one.
Note
Mathematics puts it before a noun to fix a quantity at one: unit vector, unit circle, unit variance. It works as shorthand for normalization. In William W. S. Wei's Time Series Analysis (1990), "a zero mean and a unit variance" describes a random variable whose variance is one.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- William W. S. Wei wrote Time Series Analysis, first published in 1990. sites.temple.edu
- The quoted words are attributed to Wei's book, page 9. en.wiktionary.org
- 9One of the parts into which a course or textbook is divided, each covering a single topic.
The first unit of the course covers the basics of cell biology.
Students who finish the poetry unit early can start reading ahead in the drama units.
Similarmodule, section, chapter
Note
Classroom usage treats the word like chapter: it takes a capital and a number when it names one particular section (Unit 4, start Unit 2 next week), and stays lowercase otherwise (the poetry unit). The topic usually follows with on, as in a unit on the Romans, and a topic noun can also stand in front, as in the drama units.
Less common meanings
- 10One kilowatt-hour of electricity, as recorded on a household electricity meter.
The energy supplier charges a set price per unit of electricity.
Running the heater all winter added hundreds of units to the bill.
UsageCommon in a price per unit and units used. In technical writing, kilowatt-hour is the usual name.
Similarkilowatt-hour
Note
British electricity bills charge by the unit, which is the kilowatt-hour under a friendlier name: a price per unit, so many units used this quarter.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- British electricity bills charge for consumption in units equivalent to kilowatt-hours. britishgas.co.uk
- 11A standard measure of the amount of pure alcohol contained in a drink, used to track consumption.
A single shot of spirits is roughly one unit.
Doctors advise spreading your units across several days rather than one.
UsageUsually counted over a day or week: units of alcohol, fourteen units a week.
- 12A freestanding or wall-mounted structure fitted with shelves, pegs, or hooks, used to display goods for sale.
The store arranged its seasonal stock across three display units near the entrance.
A new unit by the checkout held the impulse-buy items.
UsageUsually with a noun before it: display unit, shelving unit.
Note
The word covers the frame itself, with its shelves, pegs or hooks, and not the goods arranged on it. Restocking a unit therefore means filling it, not replacing it.
- 13A physically large, often heavily built or muscular person.
The bouncer was an absolute unit, filling the whole doorway.
Their prop forward is a complete unit who shrugs off tackles.
UsageUsually with an intensifier: an absolute unit, a big unit. It is mostly admiring and jokey.
Note
Slang that is nearly always admiring: a unit is someone whose sheer size impresses, and the word usually comes with an intensifier, as in big unit or absolute unit. It can be tender as well as jokey. In BBC News in 2018, a grieving father called his goalkeeper son "a big lad, a big unit… a gentle giant."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The BBC News report appeared in 2018. bbc.com
- The speaker was Americo Campanaro, grieving father of goalkeeper Luca Campanaro. en.wiktionary.org
- The quotation accurately excerpts the father's words, with an ellipsis marking the omission. en.wiktionary.org
- 14The number one, regarded as a single whole quantity and the basic value from which whole numbers are counted or built. It also means the ones place in a written number.
In the rightmost column, the digit shows how many units there are.
Adding one more unit turns nine into ten.
Similarone
- 15The standard quantity of blood taken in one donation, typically about 450 to 500 milliliters, or a prepared amount of a blood component.
Surgeons transfused three units during the lengthy operation.
One unit of blood is collected at a typical donation.
Note
Hospitals count transfusions this way. An adult patient may be given two or three units, with no volume in milliliters stated, though children's doses are often given in milliliters. Because each unit is a roughly standard quantity, units of blood can be ordered, stocked and recorded like doses, and the plain number tells the medical team about how much was given.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Hospitals prescribe and count blood transfusions in units. rdash.nhs.uk
- Transfusions may be prescribed in milliliters; this is specifically recommended for infants and children. nhsbtdbe.blob.core.windows.net
- Blood-component unit volumes vary. For example, red-cell units containing additive solution typically have volumes of 300–400 mL. redcross.org
- Blood units can be ordered, stocked and recorded as discrete quantities. blood.gov.au
- The number gives the unit count, but does not establish an exact volume because unit volumes vary. lifeblood.com.au
- 16Short for international unit: a measure of how strongly a vitamin, hormone, or medicine acts in the body.
The label listed 1,000 units of vitamin A per capsule.
A single unit of this hormone triggers a measurable response.
UsageOften follows a number: 500 units of vitamin E, ten units of insulin. Omit of and the substance when it is already clear.
Note
Behind the 500 units on a vitamin label is a measure fixed by effect. The full international unit is an amount of biological activity defined differently for each substance, so that one unit of one preparation acts on the body like one unit of another of the same type. Units of unlike substances should not be compared.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Vitamin labels can express quantities in international units. ods.od.nih.gov
- An international unit measures biological activity. nibsc.org
- Equal international-unit quantities of preparations of the same substance represent equal biological activity. en.wikipedia.org
- International-unit quantities of different substances are not equivalent. en.wikipedia.org
- 17An individual member of a military organization.
In the strategy game, every unit has its own health bar, so you can see which soldiers are about to fall.
I lost my strongest unit, a knight on horseback, when I sent him across the bridge without any support.
Similarsoldier
Note
In informal military talk the count can be of machines as readily as of people: a brigade that moves in with 20 units may mean 20 tanks. The word turns each soldier or vehicle into a countable piece of the force, which is why it sounds clipped and operational rather than personal.
- 18The penis, used especially of one that is large.
The locker-room jokes were all about whose unit was biggest.
He winked and made a coarse remark about his unit.
Note
It works by understatement, treating the body part like a piece of equipment, and it usually carries a boast about size. Because the word is otherwise so ordinary, context does all the work. In the wrong setting, an innocent "his unit" can be heard this way.
- 19A volume of rock or ice of identifiable origin and age range, defined by the distinctive, easily mapped features that characterize it.
- 20The element of a set that, when combined with any other element under a given operation, leaves that element unchanged; the identity element.
- 21An invertible element of a ring: one that has a multiplicative inverse within the structure; an associate of the unity.
- 22In an adjunction, a natural transformation from the identity functor on the left adjoint's domain to the composite of the right adjoint with the left adjoint.
- 23A gold coin minted during the reign of James I, valued at twenty shillings.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Originally spelled "unite," a later form of "unity"; see unity.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Unit was originally spelled unite, a later form of unity. en.wiktionary.org