dual

/ˈd͡ʒuː.əl/US/ˈdul/

dual adjective: characterized by having two (usually equivalent) components.

Adjective

dual (not comparable)

Characterized by having two (usually equivalent) components.
- a dual-motor vehicle
Synonyms:

double, twin
Pertaining to two, pertaining to a pair of.
- dual engine failure
- dual citizenship
Synonyms:

double, duplicate, duplex, duple, twissel, twofold, twosome
Pertaining to a grammatical number in certain languages that refers to two of something, such as a pair of shoes.
- Modern Arabic displays a dual number, as did Homeric Greek.
Exhibiting duality.
Being the space of all linear functionals of (some other space).
- Accordingly, a hyperplane in the sample space is dual to a subspace in the variable space.2012, Doug Fisher, Hans-J. Lenz, Learning from Data: Artificial Intelligence and Statistics V, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 81
Being the dual of some other category; containing the same objects but with source and target reversed for all morphisms.
- Every category is dual to its own dual, so if a statement holds in all categories so does its dual.1992, Colin McLarty, Elementary Categories, Elementary Toposes, Clarendon Press, →ISBN, page 77
Synonyms:

opposite

Noun

dual (plural duals)

Of an item that is one of a pair, the other item in the pair.
Of a regular polyhedron with V vertices and F faces, the regular polyhedron having F vertices and V faces.
- The octahedron is the dual of the cube. The icosahedron is the dual of the dodecahedron.
The dual number.
Of a vector in an inner product space, the linear functional corresponding to taking the inner product with that vector. The set of all duals is a vector space called the dual space.
A head-to-head match or meet between two teams, such as two high schools or colleges.
- Wrestling duals and meets take place at the Wisconsin Field House. There are no advance single event ticket sales.2010 August 3, Kevin Revolinski, Insiders' Guide® to Madison, WI, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 137
- But Dave agreed to participate in the Bulgarian dual, and that trapped me into having to wrestle, too.2014 November 18, Mark Schultz, David Thomas, Foxcatcher: The True Story of My Brother's Murder, John du Pont's Madness, and the Quest for Olympic Gold, Penguin, →ISBN

Verb

dual (third-person singular simple present duals, present participle (US) dualing or (UK) dualling, simple past and past participle (US) dualed or (UK) dualled)

(transitive) To convert from single to dual; specifically, to convert a single-carriageway road to a dual carriageway.
- I have to declare an interest and I do so with some ambivalence because if the road is dualled it is likely to take half of my front garden.1994, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates
- The power generation and propulsion systems are dualled to accommodate component failure and maintain propulsion at reduced speed should any part of one system be lost.2006, David Lowe, Intermodal Freight Transport, page 163

dual meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

dual in Hindi

in grammar: द्विवचन dvivcan

dual in Tamil

இரட்டை, இருமுக, இருமம், இருமையான

dual in Urdu

دہرا

dual in Bengali

দ্বিবচন, দ্বিবচনাত্মক শব্দ, দ্বৈত, দ্বিবচনাত্মক, দ্বিগুণ

More languagesFewer languages

dual in Telugu: రెండవ reṇḍava
dual in Malayalam: ഇരട്ടയായ, ദ്വന്ദ്വമായ, രണ്ടായ, ദ്വിവിധമായ
dual in Kannada: ಇಬ್ಬಗೆ, ಇಬ್ಬರ, ಎರಡು
dual in Nepali: डुअल
dual in Tagalog: dalawahan
dual in Arabic: مُثَنًّى muṯannan, مُثَنَّى muṯannā
dual in Indonesian: ganda, dwi, dual
dual in Thai: ทวิพจน์

Examples of dual in a sentence

Both Deborah and Samuel held dual roles as judges and prophets.2020, Grace Ying May, “Women Disciplining Men: A Biblical Pattern of Leadership”, in Aída Besançon Spencer, William David Spencer, editors...
Japan reinforced its strict stance in January when a court upheld the country’s ban against dual citizenship, rejecting a lawsuit filed by Japanese citizens living in Europe.2021 March 15, Jessie Yeung, “These Asian countries are giving dual citizens an ultimatum on nationality – and loyalty”, in CNN:
Early in 2021, she became the first female to compete and win a match at the Ter-Hark Cup wrestling dual, helping her squad to victory.2023 October 19, Jason Norman, American Women in Amateur Wrestling, 2000-2022, McFarland, →ISBN, page 203:
The investment will allow Nexus to increase service frequencies, reduce journey times, and improve reliability by dualling three sections of line between Pelaw and South Shields.2021 September 22, “Network News: Nexus increases Tyne and Wear Metro train order to 46”, in RAIL, number 940, page 23:

All 40 example sentences with dual

Synonyms of dual

All synonyms of dual

Forms of dual

Adjective
alternative abbreviation	du.
Noun
plural	duals
Verb
third-person singular present	duals
present participle US	dualing
present participle UK	dualling
past participle US	dualed
past US	dualed
past participle UK	dualled
past UK	dualled

Origin of dual

PIE word *dwóh₁ Borrowed from Latin dualis (“two”), from duo (“two”) + adjective suffix -alis.

Words formed from dual

Words that rhyme with dual

Questions about dual

What does dual mean?: Dual means characterized by having two (usually equivalent) components.
What is dual in Hindi?: Dual in Hindi is द्विवचन (dvivcan). See Dual meaning in Hindi.
How do you use dual in a sentence?: Both Deborah and Samuel held dual roles as judges and prophets.
What part of speech is dual?: Dual can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce dual?: Dual is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒuː.əl/.

Words near dual in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: dual (page history and authors); dual (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dual (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dual (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); రెండవ (Telugu) (page history and authors); dual (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dual (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dual (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-dual.ogg.

Cite this entry: “dual.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dual. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.