individual
noun
Individual — a single human being, set apart from any group
Definition
A human being; "there was too much for one person to do"
In depth
An individual is a person considered specifically as a single, undivided unit, distinct from any crowd, class, or category they might otherwise belong to. The word performs a kind of insistence: where 'person' is neutral, 'individual' often pushes back against collective identity, emphasizing the singular over the plural.
Origin
The word descends from Latin individuus, indivisible, formed from in- (not) and dividuus (divisible) — etymologically, an individual is a thing that cannot be split further without ceasing to be itself. That root sense of irreducibility still animates the word's modern use, where to call someone an individual is to insist they cannot be broken down into mere category or type.
Usage examples
"The policy treated every applicant as an interchangeable case, never once as an individual."
"She had always resisted being read as a representative of her generation, insisting on her right to be merely an individual."
"Even within the regimented army, certain individuals managed to remain stubbornly themselves."
How to use it
Individual is the word of choice when a writer wants to foreground singularity against a backdrop of category, system, or crowd — it works especially well in social criticism, political writing, and any prose interested in the tension between the one and the many.
Related concepts
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