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Peculiar   /pəkjˈuljər/  /pɪkjˈuljər/   Listen
adjective
Peculiar  adj.  
1.
One's own; belonging solely or especially to an individual; not possessed by others; of private, personal, or characteristic possession and use; not owned in common or in participation. "And purify unto himself a peculiar people." "Hymns... that Christianity hath peculiar unto itself."
2.
Particular; individual; special; appropriate. "While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat." "My fate is Juno's most peculiar care."
3.
Unusual; singular; rare; strange; as, the sky had a peculiar appearance.
Synonyms: Peculiar, Special, Especial. Peculiar is from the Roman peculium, which was a thing emphatically and distinctively one's own, and hence was dear. The former sense always belongs to peculiar (as, a peculiar style, peculiar manners, etc.), and usually so much of the latter as to involve feelings of interest; as, peculiar care, watchfulness, satisfaction, etc. Nothing of this kind belongs to special and especial. They mark simply the relation of species to genus, and denote that there is something in this case more than ordinary; as, a special act of Congress; especial pains, etc. "Beauty, which, either walking or asleep, Shot forth peculiar graces." "For naught so vile that on the earth doth live, But to the earth some special good doth give."


noun
Peculiar  n.  
1.
That which is peculiar; a sole or exclusive property; a prerogative; a characteristic. "Revenge is... the peculiar of Heaven."
2.
(Eng. Canon Law) A particular parish or church which is exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary.
Court of Peculiars (Eng. Law), a branch of the Court of Arches having cognizance of the affairs of peculiars.
Dean of peculiars. See under Dean, 1.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Peculiar" Quotes from Famous Books



... protective equipment that I thought was worth a whoop was a very peculiar device with which a contingent of five hundred Altoonas was supplied. They called it the "umbra-shield." It was a bell-shaped affair of inertron, counterweighted with ultron, about eight feet high. The gunner, who walked inside it, carried it easily with two shoulder straps. ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... Many peculiar circumstances and events connected with my childhood throng the chambers of memory. For some twelve months, when I was about eight years old, I repeatedly heard a voice, calling me distinctly by name, three times, in an ascending scale. I thought this was my mother's ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... Her peculiar grievance, coupled with Susie's look of utter amazement at the performance of her cup, caused a merry laugh all around, and the subject of bonfire was speedily forgotten, to Tabitha's ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... peculiar obligations to the State of New York. We are indebted largely to her prompt and liberal co-operation for the high stand which the Exposition has taken. We are indebted to the Governor, to the New York Commission, to the gracious hostesses of this ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... remarkable, Edgar," she said, dilating repeatedly on the peculiar quality of their good fortune. "It's not only good cooking, and good waiting, and a clean house—cleaner than I ever saw one before; and it's not only the quietness, and regularity and economy—why the bills have gone ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman


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