nonpareil
non·pa·reil
noun
model of excellence or perfection of a kind; one having no equal
adjective
eminent beyond or above comparison
- “matchless beauty”
- “the team”
- “;”
- “s one girl in a million”
- “the one and only Muhammad Ali”
- “a peerless scholar”
- “infamy unmatched in the Western world”
- “wrote with unmatchable clarity”
- “unrivaled mastery of her art”
Origin
From Late Middle English non-parail (“unparalleled, nonpareil”) [and other forms], from Middle French nonpareille, nonpareil (“unparalleled”) (obsolete), from non- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + pareil (“alike, like, same”). Pareil is derived from Old French pareil, from Late Latin pāriculus (“equal; like; of a number: even”), from Latin pār (“equal; like; of a number: even; suitable”) + -culus (a variant of -ulus (suffix forming diminutives)). Noun sense 4 (size of type standardized at 6-point) is usually taken to derive from the attractive type cut by the brothers Giovanni and Gregorio De Gregori (fl. 1482-1503 and 1496-1527 respectively) for their 1498 edition of the divine offices in Venice; it was for a long time the smallest-sized type in use.
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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.