sui generis

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The Word of the Day for March 2 is: 

sui generis   \ soo-eye-JEN-uh-ris\   adjective 
     : constituting a class alone : unique, peculiar 

Example sentence:
     An obscure female rock trio from the '60s, the Shaggs enjoy a cult
following today as much for the uniqueness of their music as for their sui
generis history.

Did you know? 
     English contains many terms that ultimately trace back to the Latin
forms "gener-" or "genus" (which are variously translated as "birth,"
"race," "kind," "gender," and "class"). Offspring of those roots include
"general," "generate,"
"generous," "generic," "degenerate," and "gender." But "sui generis" is
truly a one-of-a-kind "gener-" descendant that English speakers have used
for singular things since the mid-1700s. Its earliest uses were in
scientific contexts, where it identified substances, principles, diseases,
and even rocks that were unique or that seemed to be the only
representative of their class or group. By the early 1900s, however, "sui
generis" had expanded beyond solely scientific contexts, and it is now
used more generally for anything that stands alone.





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