Word.ws English Dictionary

univocal

/juːnɪˈvəʊkəl/US/juːnɪˈvoʊkəl/

univocal adjective: having only one possible meaning.

Adjective

univocal (not comparable)

  1. (rhetoric) Having only one possible meaning.
    • There were, he argued, some words, such as ‘fat’ or ‘exhausted’, that could not apply to God, but if such terms as ‘being’, ‘goodness’ or ‘wisdom’ were not univocal of God and creatures, ‘one could not naturally have any concept of God – which is false.’1999, Karen Armstrong, The Case for God, Vintage, published 2010, page 146
    Synonyms:
    definite
  2. Containing instances of only one vowel; univocalic.
    • Eunoia is a univocal lipogram — an anomalous narrative, in which each vowel appears by itself in its own chapter, telling a story in its own voice.2000, Gail Scott, Robert Glück, Camille Roy, Biting the Error: Writers Explore Narrative
    • I read through the dictionary five times to extract an extensive lexicon of univocal words containing only one of the five vowels.2002, Brick, numbers 69-70, page 118
  3. Having unison of sound, as the octave has in music.
  4. Having always the same drift or tenor; uniform; certain; regular.
    • But I am much pleased at the repetition of the divine favour to you in the like instances; that God hath given you another testimony of his love to your person, and care of your family ; it is an engagement to you of new degrees of duty, which you cannot but superadde to the former, because the...1657, Jeremy Taylor, Evelyn Memoirs, volume II, page 119
    • It is not indeed impossible, that from the sperm of a cock, hen, or other animal, being once in putrescence, either from incubation or otherwise, some generation may ensue; not univocal and of the same species, but some imperfect or monstrous production […]1890, Sir Thomas Browne, The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, volume I, London: George Bell and Sons, page 258
  5. Unequivocal; indubitable.
    • There is no blessed soul goes to heaven but he makes a general joy in all the mansions where the saints do dwell, and in all the chapels where the angels sing ; and the joys of religion are not univocal, but productive of rare and accidental and preternatural pleasures ; for the music of holy hymns...1651–1653, Jer[emy] Taylor, ΕΝΙΑΥΤΟΣ [Eniautos]. A Course of Sermons for All the Sundays of the Year. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Richard Royston […], published 1655, →OCLC
    • These scenarios should not be seen as unambiguous, univocal solutions, and it would be wrong to treat any of them as such; rather, they are just meant to spell out a range of possibilities.2023, Marwan Kilani, On the traces of "apples", "plums", and "pears", John Benjamins Publishing Company

Noun

univocal (plural univocals)

  1. A word having only one meaning.
  2. A document containing instances of only one vowel.
    • The univocal is by no means the preserve of the nineteenth century. Georges Perec's 1972 novella Les revenentes complemented his earlier lipogrammatic work by being a univocalic piece in which the letter e is the only vowel used.2015, Gyles Brandreth, Word Play

univocal meaning in Tamil

univocal in Tamil

ஒரு பொருள் ஒரு சொல், தனி அலகுச் சொல

Synonyms of univocal

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of univocal

Forms of univocal

pluralunivocals

Origin of univocal

From Late Latin ūnivocus + -al. By surface analysis, uni- + vocal.

Words formed from univocal

Questions about univocal

What does univocal mean?
Univocal means having only one possible meaning.
What is univocal in Tamil?
Univocal in Tamil is ஒரு பொருள் ஒரு சொல், தனி அலகுச் சொல. See Univocal meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is univocal?
Univocal can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce univocal?
Univocal is pronounced /juːnɪˈvəʊkəl/ (UK).

Words near univocal in the dictionary

  1. universology
  2. univesicular
  3. univied
  4. univocability
  5. univocacy
  6. univocal
  7. univocalic
  8. univocalics
  9. univocality
  10. univocalize
  11. univocalized

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: univocal (page history and authors); univocal (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-univocal.wav.

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