one

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.

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

1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 8, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC:

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do / Two can be as bad as one / It's the loneliest number since the number one

1968, Harry Nilsson (lyrics and music), “One”, in Aerial Ballet:

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

(number theory) The first positive number in the set of natural numbers.

(set theory) The cardinality of the smallest nonempty set.

(mathematics) The ordinality of an element which has no predecessor, usually called first or number one.

see for numerical forms in other scripts

one's damned if one does and one's damned if one doesn't

Bahamian Creole: wan

Belizean Creole: wan

Bislama: wan

Gullah: one

Jamaican Creole: wan

Nigerian Pidgin: wọ́n, wọn

Sranan Tongo: wan

Tok Pisin: wan

→ Atong (India): wan

→ Fanagalo: wan

(Chenega, Nanwalek, Port Graham) all'inguq

PIE word
 *h₁óynos
From Middle English oon, on, oan, an, from Old English ān (“one”), from Proto-West Germanic *ain, from Proto-Germanic *ainaz (“one”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos (“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”); Danish en (“one”); Swedish en (“one”); Norwegian Nynorsk ein (“one”), Icelandic einn (“one”); Latin ūnus (“one”) (Old Latin oinos); Russian оди́н (odín), Spanish uno. Doublet of a, an, and Uno.
The use as an indefinite personal pronoun may have been influenced by unrelated French on, although the Germanic languages widely use cognates for the same sense (usually in non-subject function, but also in subject function, e.g. Luxembourgish een).
Verb form from Middle English onen.


one

Any one of the boys.  The big one looks good.  I want the green one.  Every one of the bank’s employees.  A good driver is one who drives carefully.

Which happies thoſe that pay the willing lone; / That's for thy ſelfe to breed an other thee / Or ten times happier be it ten for one,[…]

1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 6”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

‘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.’

1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

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[…].

1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page vii:

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.

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

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

"driver", noun: one who drives.

head

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

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

expressed by nominalization when following an adjective

egyik

impersonal pronoun; the first mentioned of two things or people, as opposed to the other

اَلْمَرْء

indefinite personal pronoun; any person, people in general

usually expressed by the modal verbs or similar expressions

often omitted but e.g. ihminen may be used instead

expressed by subject indetermination or the use of passive voice

both usually with the oblique pronoun se

хоте́ться plus infinitive forms or reflexive forms used of type чу́вствоваться

dyn is used when it comes after a preposition

but is ei in the genitive form e.g. Mae iawnderau a dyletswyddau gyda dyn- One has rights and duties

Chwerthir am ei pen- One will be laughed at


one

This effectively allows switching on and off of the flow of current, so it is either conducting or not conducting, creating the binary system of zeroes and ones used in digital computers.

2024 January 4, Matthew Sparkes, “First working graphene semiconductor could lead to faster computers”, in New Scientist, retrieved 2024-01-18:

I need some ones to make change.

(by ellipsis) Used to briefly refer to a noun phrase understood by context

It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter 5, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 97:

The ophthalmic surgeon attends Tuesdays and Saturdays, at half-past one.

1853 September 17, “Metropolitan Hospitals & Medical Schools”, in The Lancet, volume 62, number 1568, →DOI, page 268:

It was a weary time. A carriage clock had been placed on the discoloured wooden mantelpiece, and slowly its hands crept on from one to two and from two to three.

1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “In which Three Investigators Come across a Dark Soul”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

(cricket) One run scored by hitting the ball and running between the wickets; a single.

Did you hear the one about the agnostic dyslexic insomniac?

Pause. They look meaningly at one another. / "You are a one for being roundabout," says the lady.

1905, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul, London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, page 55:

(followed by for) A person (having some specified characteristic or attribute).

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.

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

1995, Bryan Adams, Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?:

(colloquial) A particularly special or compatible person or thing.

Finally got Ollie Martin. He couldn't have more poise, and what do I care if he is one?

1933 March 25, Dorothy Parker, “The Diary of a Lady”, in The New Yorker, page 13:

(dated, euphemistic or derogatory) A gay person.

(mathematics) The identity element with respect to multiplication in a ring.

A: SUM1 Hl3p ME im alwyz L0ziN!1!?1!
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

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


one

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

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.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

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

Being a single, unspecified thing; a; any.

He is the one man who can help you.

The one male audience member at the concert is invited on stage.

Body and soul are not separate; they are one.

We are one on the importance of learning.

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


one

There was one box of biscuits available.

He is one hell of a guy.

Used for emphasis in place of a
Being a preeminent example.

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

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

un

being an unknown person with the specified name


one

The question, of course, evokes discernment, not dogma, but we should note that the "unknowing" involves intellectual knowledge, whereas the problematic of being "oned" involves experiential knowledge.

1994, Christopher Nugent, Mysticism, Death and Dying, page 55:

And both shall be oned in eternal happiness.

2000, Carolyn Baker, The Journey of Forgiveness: Fulfilling the Healing Process, page 145:

Knit and oned to God human beings are irrevocably in relationship with the divine.

2003, Elizabeth MacKinlay, Mental Health and Spirituality in Later Life, page 83:

What might be if we were Oned? United, as we would say, but at a greater depth than being a season ticket holder in a football club, or a shareholder in some conglomerate.

2019, David Grieve, Love in Thin Places: Confessions of a Cathedral Chaplain, page 43:

(transitive) To cause to become one; to gather into a single whole; to unite.

en-verb

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

ones (present singular third-person)
oning (participle present)
oned (participle past)
oned (past)

Table of cardinal numbers 0 to 9 in various languages


one

Got almonds one. ― There are almonds in it.

How come so heavy one ah? ― Why is it so heavy?

Can easily get lost one, know? ― You can easily get lost here/there.

'My boyfriends very possessive one. They don't allow me to wear clothes I want, do things I want,' she laments.

2000 February 14, Patricia Mok, The Straits Times (Life! section), Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings, →OCLC, page 5:

Why so special one?

2004, Ethical Egoist, soc.culture.singapore (Usenet):

Used at the end of a sentence to highlight the characteristics of someone or something.

My friend send one. ― It was sent by my friend.

Who say one? ― Who said so?

He ask one, not I ask one. ― It wasn’t me who asked, it was him.

ooooooooooar! you own self admit one har! i never say one har!

2011, Singrish King, soc.culture.singapore (Usenet):

Used at the end of a sentence to highlight the originator of something.

The sell fruits one go home already. ― The fruit seller went home.

A nominalizer used to form a noun phrase without a head noun.

Analogous to several senses of Hokkien ê and Mandarin 的 (de, declarative particle, nominalizer, etc.). This semantic loan might have stemmed from the apparent similarity between one as a prop-word and 的/-ê as a nominalizer (e.g. 青色的 (“the green one”)). Compare Cantonese 嘅 (ge³).


one

relative pronoun
relative pronoun#English

(Singapore, Singlish, rare) Used as a relative pronoun at the end of a relative clause.