1An individual thing or person regarded as single and complete but which can also form an individual component of a larger or more complex whole.

1. 1.1 A self-contained section in a building or group of buildings.
   one- and two-bedroom units

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Ms. Finnegan went on to state that while 1,300 houses had been built in the city and county last year, the increase in the number of units provided had not kept place with demand.
   • The building houses 131 units, ranging from superior rooms to studio apartments, executive studios and then to one and two bedroom family suites.
   • I am not certain how this will affect the number of units available for rent.
   • The scheme will also have offices, industrial units, shops, bars and restaurants.
   • The junk of scaffolding at the bottom of the photo is actually the theatre itself - it's actually a self-contained unit within the building.
   • And property owners in various districts continue to turn apartment buildings into condo units, or at least try to.
   • But the point somehow needs to be hammered home that more apartment buildings and social housing units need to be urgently put up.
   • The county council has applied for planning permission to convert the listed building into three residential units and once this has been granted will put it on to the open market.
   • The number of low-cost rental units on the market has plummeted by as much as 75 per cent over eight years.
   • The plan promised opportunities for home ownership in a refurbished community, in exchange for a sharp reduction in the number of publicly funded units.
   • The site has a main building and 47 industrial units surrounded by state-of-the-art fencing and covered by CCTV.
   • Halfway through the plan, however, dozens of buildings have been demolished but only a small number of replacement units have been built.
   • He reports that the historically designated building will house units from 1,450 square feet to a massive 3,449 square feet over its five floors.
   • Block B is to contain 35 luxury hotel suites, 44 apartments and two retail units in a building five and six storeys in height.
   • The number of units on each site will depend on its characteristics, and the appropriate housing mix for the area and other facilities.
   • In view of this, he encouraged the Government to consider granting zoning relief at certain sites to increase the numbers of units that could be built there.
   • It is expected that the centre will be in the region of 6,000 square feet and will contain a number of units ranging from 500 to 1000 square feet.
   • They included the height of the flats, the car parking, the number of units and the re-organisation of the site to get more communal space.
   • According to her, the site will be sold to a private developer for housing but there might be a restriction on the number of units due to the scenic nature of the area.
   • The building has 21 one-bedroomed units, a shop, workshops and a cafe.
2. 1.2 A department of an institution with a specific function.
   the intensive-care unit

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Critical care units represent the apex of technically intensive American medicine.
   • The bottom line is that we must see action, not more mobile police stations or eye-in-the-sky units.
   • The Government also aims to increase the numbers of learning support units, which allow disruptive children to be taken out of the classroom and taught separately.
   • We would be called ever so often to augment police units at checkpoints and roadblocks on days when tension ran high.
   • He said detectors had been commonly used in the United States for many years but only a small number of casualty units in Britain had them, among them the Northern General in Sheffield.
   • Prospective recruits for police dog units would undergo similar psychological tests before being taken on.
   • The college has set up a number of teaching units at the cattle market in Gargrave Road, all linked to agriculture and the countryside.
   • The failure was that of the police unit and not of the witness.
   • A number of units arrived on the scene within a matter of minutes and broke through the locked gates to where the contents of a skip were ablaze.
   • Some experts predict the situation will get worse and spread across Scotland as a result of a government review which will see a number of maternity units close as care is centralised.
   • It wants the number of armed response units on patrol in Scotland to be increased and for it to be made easier for trained officers to gain access to weapons to deal with incidents involving firearms.
   • If several people in a unit or department want flexible schedules, it may not be feasible to accommodate all of them.
   • He said the new head of homicide is one of the best qualified officers of color in the department to run the unit.
   • She said car crime had gone down and that the police had introduced off-road units, or police officers on motorbikes, to target these kinds of crimes.
   • Many police forces have introduced units to tackle vandalism, fire-raising and violence between security firms.
   • Specifically excluded from this study were specimens obtained from intensive care units and emergency departments.
   • Post-apartheid South Africa has trained domestic violence units in its police force.
   • Those figures do not even include the amounts allocated to police and forensics units that work with the prosecution.
   • I've just spent four days working at the anti-terrorist unit in Paddington Green police station, west London.
   • The unit will offer international standard risk management services to Indian companies.

   Synonyms

   division, section, sector, subsection, subdivision, branch, arm, wing, segment, compartment
3. 1.3 A subdivision of a larger military grouping.
   he returned to Germany with his unit

   Example sentencesExamples

   • A guidon is traditionally carried by cavalry units in battle and marks the rally point for the troops before commencing the battle.
   • Some instruction is for military units, such as Special Forces training in Mali and Senegal.
   • Many members of the unit are police officers or prison guards who will be returning to those jobs.
   • The Army does not command and control contractors in the way it commands and controls military units and soldiers.
   • The book unemotionally depicts the reality that Red Army rifle units experienced in the war, warts and all.
   • Land, sea, and air units are represented as well as the gendarmerie.
   • No fewer that 13 separate units are represented within the group.
   • A legion was a military unit of the Roman army made up of infantry and supporting cavalry numbering three to six thousand men.
   • The Red Army used infantry and cavalry units to move more resolutely and to a deeper depth.
   • You may well see units coming from a number of smaller NATO countries.
   • The initiative places reporters alongside military units on the front lines.
   • Journalists who signed a contract with the military were embedded with units in every military branch.
   • Times when the enemy ‘entered by force’ with infantry or cavalry units have passed.
   • With reporters wed to a military unit on the battlefield, the relationship would be symbiotic.
   • This produced numerous field executions and the frequent use of decimation against undisciplined units.
   • It is used by active duty military personnel in field units and will not present any physical hazards to the soldier.
   • I have long been a fan of the concept of embedded media with military units in wartime.
   • But when Greek army and navy units mutinied in Egypt in April 1944 there were a number of deaths.
   • A comparatively low level of casualties can demoralize both individual military units and the entire army.
   • The situation in Java was much like a repeat of the Philippines, and the Allied aerial units were once again decimated by an aggressive enemy.

   Synonyms

   detachment, contingent, outfit, section, division, company, squadron, corps, regiment, brigade, platoon, battalion, force, garrison, legion, formation, crew, squad, detail

   cell, faction
4. 1.4 A self-contained part of an educational course.
   students take three compulsory core units

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Continuing education units were granted after completion of each unit assessment.
   • Teachers spend approximately eight weeks teaching lessons from these units.
   • At other times, specialists chose units of study already imbedded in their curriculums.
   • Continuing education units are available for many of the classes.
   • Most of the college units and courses on the National Qualifications catalogue have been designed and developed by the colleges themselves.
   • Students brainstorm words they know that are related to their unit of study and that begin with the different letters of the alphabet.
   • Include multiple author units in your school year.
   • With access to this website you have hundreds of Internet links that correspond to your units being studied.
   • Does the book help meet curricular objectives or enhance the thematic units being studied?
   • Continuing education units are awarded for their completion.
   • During this block, the teacher candidates teach units in each of the subject areas.
   • It's interesting that few teachers have a unit of sports or use sports books to hook their students.
   • Ganma entails more than including compulsory units of Aboriginal studies into the existing curriculum.
   • Discover more about springboard materials, booster lessons, and view summer numeracy schools' units of work.
   • The school exerted pressure on Ms. Stacey to complete a certain number of mathematics units before the school year was over.
   • Those who complete the online course will receive 0.2 continuing education units.
   • Always remember, the units described here are to supplement your core curriculum.
   • After a few months, all units in refresher courses will also be available.
   • At several of the sites, teachers within grade levels developed thematic units on which both bilingual and regular classroom students worked.
   • Poems may be studied in an integrated curriculum or in separate units of study.
5. 1.5 A single manufactured item.
   as modifier unit cost

   Example sentencesExamples

   • With unit costs down, companies don't have to squeeze pay as much as they have in past periods of weakness.
   • It is the professed goal of these international firms to obtain the lowest unit production costs on a worldwide basis.
   • Beth's priority is the quality of her song-writing as opposed to the number of units sold.
   • The third alternative is to produce a commodity at a lower unit cost than anyone else can.
   • I wanted a quality product, more than I wanted to shift large numbers of units.
   • Rather, they should ignore the money they've already spent, and set their prices to sell the number of units that gets them the greatest profit.
   • The unit cost for manufacturing any current intraocular lens probably does not exceed £10 anywhere.
   • It has been brought to my attention that gold certifications are based on the number of units shipped, not sold.
   • At one point, the number reached as high as 100,000 units, representing about $600 million in finished inventory.
   • This was designed to cut the high unit cost of producing milk during the four off season months when production is about one tenth of the peak summer volume.
   • Second, the price of anything that can be manufactured in a silicon fabrication plant will plummet as the number of units shipped increases.
   • Doubling the size of a factory does not necessarily double the costs of production, so the unit cost of production falls.
   • He paid, but called me later and said the per unit cost didn't work out to what he thought.
   • In many industries, economies of scale are available to firms, so that as they grow bigger, their unit costs fall.
   • This may be one of the greatest films ever made, but if you can't generate the kind of awareness you need to sell a number of units, your budget's going to be pretty tight.
   • That's because falling unit costs increase the profit margin on each good or service sold.
   • Rising car sales spread those high costs over more units, but battery manufacturing capacity is still constrained.
   • Relying too much on markets for either input supplies or sales outlets places the low unit cost of production that comes with economies of scale at risk.
   • Though the cups have to be heated properly before sale, it again could make its unit cost price shoot up.
   • The bigger the centrifuge, the larger the capacity - you get more output per machine and cut your unit cost.
6. 1.6British The smallest measure of investment in a unit trust.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • Just like a mutual fund, it issues redeemable units to investors and must follow guidelines set out by the SEC.
   • Another alternative would be to invest in a unit or investment trust that specialise in property.
   • So for example, it could trade shares, debentures, units in public unit trusts, and allegedly you could also buy and sell land on Ausmaq.
   • The management company sells the units to the investors.
   • However, if you're interested in investing in the stock market, you may be keen to use a unit / investment trust company that you know.

2A device that has a specified function, especially one forming part of a complex mechanism.

1. 2.1 A piece of furniture or equipment for fitting with others like it or made of complementary parts.
   a sink unit

   Example sentencesExamples

   • On the other hand the internal wall at the back of the lamia was up which made the kitchen and bathroom into real rooms and much easier to visualise where the fittings, worktops and units would go.
   • Showers will have screens instead of curtains, there will be heated towel rails and versatile drawers, shelves, cupboards and desk units.
   • It contains extensive wall and floor units, display cabinets and a hob, oven and extractor fan.
   • Also to the front is a double bedroom which is currently used as a study and which includes a wooden desk, bookcases and several shelving units.
   • A utility room off the kitchen includes a fitted broom cupboard, floor units and stainless steel sink.
   • She also carries out these effects on furniture, including kitchen units, dining sets, chairs, mirrors.
   • Handcrafted wooden furniture, desktop units, lamps and even a handcrafted electric guitar was also exhibited.
   • It stocks all manner of furniture, from dressing tables and desks to entertainment units and bed bases.
   • The kitchen is fitted with maple units and display cabinets as well as a breakfast bar, while an adjoining conservatory area has a pitched glass ceiling and another set of patio doors.
   • The fallen lumber was taken away and turned into kitchen units and a dining table.
   • Tables, kitchen units and sideboards should also be avoided.
   • Open shelf units, closed cupboards and filing cabinets complementing the desks are available.
   • A compact fitted kitchen with maple units and chrome fittings is located off the dining area to the rear of the house.
   • All of the rooms are large and the kitchen is fully fitted with solid wood units and stainless steel fittings.
   • Upstairs there are two double bedrooms to the front of the house, both with built-in wardrobes and sink units.
   • A number of damaged units were removed from the kitchen.
   • It is fully tiled and has been fitted with a range of units and display cabinets.
   • The bright en suite bathroom has a corner bath with telephone shower attachment, a bidet and a sink unit.
   • He can build cupboards, beds, chairs, television units - all kinds of furniture.
   • The kitchen has maple wall and floor units with integrated display cabinets and a wine rack.
2. 2.2US A police car.
   he eased into his unit and flicked the siren on

3A quantity chosen as a standard in terms of which other quantities may be expressed.

4The number one.

1. 4.1units The digit before the decimal point in decimal notation, representing an integer less than ten.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • When writing an integer in decimal we use, essentially, a units column, a tens column, a hundreds column, a thousands column, and so on.
   • In words, what we want is to chop off the units digit, multiply it by something suitable, then either add it to or subtract it from our truncated number.
   • The number of pips showing on the ten are the units digit of the score, and the total number of pips showing on the Jack and Queen (which may be face up or face down) are the tens digit.
   • In writing down the score, all scores are divided by 10 with fractions rounded down (i.e. the units digit is omitted).
   • The Romans represented units, tens, hundreds, and thousands as separate items in their numbers.