a. [f. UNIT sb. or UNIT-Y1 + -ARY1. cf. F. unitaire sb. and a., It. unitario sb., f. mod.L. unitari-us UNITARIAN.]
1. Crystallography. (See quot.)
1816. R. Jameson, Char. Min. (ed. 2), 211. A crystal is named Unitary, when it experiences only a single decrement by one row.
2. Of or pertaining to, characterized by, based upon, or directed towards, unity.
1847. Tait’s Mag., XIV. 560. The parcelled and the associative systems…. With the latter the economies of unitary habitation … might be obtained.
1871. Lowell, Study Wind. (1886), 221. The national and unitary tendencies of the people.
1893. Contemp. Rev., 799. The unitary movement in the latter country [sc. Italy].
b. Philos. Of or pertaining to, proceeding from, involving, unity of being or existence. Also absol.
a. 1842. Channing, Perfect Life (1888), 64. Man loves the Universal, the Unchangeable, the Unitary.
1885. J. Martineau, Types Eth. Th., I. 86. Every attempt at unitary deduction of a universe by predicamental logic.
1893. C. B. Upton, Bases Relig. Belief, 298. A unity of substance which … connects every part with the unitary life of the whole.
3. Of the nature of a unit; having the separate existence or individual character of a unit. Of sounds: Simple, uncompounded.
1861. Lowell, E Pluribus Unum, Pr. Wks. 1890, V. 49. The United States are not a German Confederation, but a unitary and indivisible nation.
1875. Whitney, Life Lang., iv. 56. We have altered their original unitary sounds.
1881. Huxley, in Nature, XXIV. 345. An indivisible unitary archæus dominating … the parts of the organism.
b. Philos. Of being or personality.
1865. J. Grote, Explor. Philos., I. 88. Whether … we are to be considered as having a locally distributable, or on the other hand concentrated and unitary, feeling self.
1886. Encycl. Brit., XXI. 379/1. Indirect proofs of a universe of pure and unitary Being.
a. 1901. F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality (1903), I. p. xxvi. Each man is at once profoundly unitary and almost infinitely composite.
c. Serving as a unit of measurement or calculation.
1889. Sci. Amer., LX. 304/1. A wind pressure of 1,200 pounds for the same unitary distance is allowed for.
4. Of or pertaining to a unit or units; esp. in Chem., and spec. as denominating a theory or system in which the molecules of all bodies are regarded as units.
1865. Mansfield, Salts, 137. The unitary theory of the substitution of the two halves of the hydrogen of water.
1867. Bloxam, Chem., Index, 675. Unitary definitions, 256.
1880. Clemenshaw, Wurtz’ Atomic Theory, 84. This was at that time—perhaps improperly—called the unitary system.
b. Of an alphabet, etc.: Consisting or composed of single letters or symbols for each sound.
1874. Ellis, Eng. Pronunciation, IV. 1338. His ‘unitary’ arrangement. Ibid., 1339. Professor Whitney’s Unitary Alphabet.
c. Arith. A modification of the ‘rule of three,’ by which, the value, extent, etc., of one unit being first determined, that of any number is found by multiplication.
1877. J. Hamblin Smith, Arithmetic, 164. The Unitary Method … is rapidly displacing the Rule of Three.
1908. Hall & Stevens, School Arith., 135. The process is known as Reduction to the Unit, or the Unitary Method.
5. Forming a unit with something.
1868. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. I. Wks. 1890, III. 26. [Shakespeare] seems in some strange way unitary with human nature itself.
Hence Unitariness.
1865. J. Grote, Moral Ideals (1876), 27. [Must not] the plant … have … a sort of feeling to the extent of its unitariness of organization?
Also, in recent use, unitarily adv.
1908. E. B. Huey, Psych. & Pedag. Reading, 360. Not only does he save valuable time, but having the eye far ahead of the voice, and having, too, a larger amount of what is being read ringing simultaneously and unitarily in the inner speech, he holds in his grasp at every moment a larger total of meaning, and sees each part in a better perspective.
