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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
nonpareil
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The nonpareil Lily Pons sang the role on tour.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As for them encouraging sectarianism, his letter is a nonpareil in its bigotry and insensitivity.
▪ Nelson, by now, was his nonpareil.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Nonpareil

Nonpareil \Non`pa*reil"\, n. [See Nonpareil, a. ]

  1. Something of unequaled excellence; a peerless thing or person; a nonesuch; -- often used as a name.

  2. [F. nonpareille.] (Print.) A size of type next smaller than minion and next larger than agate (or ruby).

    Note: This line is printed in the type called nonpareil.

  3. (Zo["o]l.)

    1. A beautifully colored finch ( Passerina ciris), native of the Southern United States. The male has the head and neck deep blue, rump and under parts bright red, back and wings golden green, and the tail bluish purple. Called also painted bunting and painted finch.

    2. Any other similar bird of the same genus.

  4. (Cookery) A small sphere, less than 1 mm diamter, of colored sugar, used to decorate confections; -- usually used in the plural as though the name of a substance; as, sprinkled with nonpareils.

  5. pl. A type of candy chocolate consisting of a small flat disk of chocolate, less than one inch diameter, having nonpareils[4] sprinkled on the top; as, she ate a box of nonpareils at the movie.

Nonpareil

Nonpareil \Non`pa*reil"\, a. [F., from non not + pareil equal, fr. LL. pariculus, dim. of L. par equal. See Non, and Pair, Peer.] Having no equal; peerless.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
nonpareil

late 15c., "having no equal," from Middle French nonpareil "unequalled, peerless," from non- "not" (see non-) + pareil "equal." The noun meaning "an unequaled person or thing" is from 1590s; first applied to a kind of candy 1690s. As the name of a printing type (6 point size) it is attested from 1640s.

Wiktionary
nonpareil

a. unequalled, unrivalled; unique. (from 15th c.) n. 1 A person or thing that has no equal; a paragon. (from 16th c.) 2 A small pellet of colored sugar used as decoration on baked goods and candy. 3 A small, flat chocolate drop covered with white pellets of sugar, similar to a comfit. 4 (context uncountable dated printing English) The size of type between agate and minion, standardized as 6-point.

WordNet
nonpareil
  1. adj. eminent beyond or above comparison; "matchless beauty"; "the team's nonpareil center fielder"; "she'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" [syn: matchless, one(a), one and only(a), peerless, unmatched, unmatchable, unrivaled, unrivalled]

  2. n. model of excellence or perfection of a kind; one having no equal [syn: ideal, paragon, saint, apotheosis, nonesuch, nonsuch]

  3. colored beads of sugar used as a topping on e.g. candies and cookies

  4. a flat disk of chocolate covered with beads of colored sugar

Wikipedia
Nonpareil

Nonpareil(s) from the French meaning 'without equal', it may also refer to:

  • Nonpareil, Guyana, a village in Guyana
  • Nonpareil, Nebraska, a community in the United States
  • Nonpareil, Oregon, a former community in the United States
  • Nonpareils, a confectionery of small sweet spheres used to decorate cakes, sweets, and pastries
  • Jack "Nonpareil" Dempsey (1862–1895), Irish boxer
  • HMS Nonpareil, several ships
  • Nonpareil, a rag composed by Scott Joplin published in 1907
  • Nonpareil, an Al Cohn jazz recording from 1981
  • Nonpareil, a variety of almond
  • nonpareil (typography), the type size between minion and agate
  • Painted bunting, a type of bird also known as nonpareil
  • The Nonpareil Club, a fictional club mentioned in The Hound of the Baskervilles
Nonpareil (apple)

'Nonpareil' is an old apple cultivar that is also known by many other names. It is a type of russet apple.

Usage examples of "nonpareil".

Coming from a Nonpareil, these words reduced Jessamy to stammering incoherence.

A veritable artist, possessed of a deftness nonpareil with cotton swab and evacuation-hypo, the medical attache is known among the shrinking upper classes of petro-Arab nations as the DeBakey of maxillofacial yeast, his staggering fee-scale as wholly ad valorem.

Council for a Sound Economy and tens of millions more for think tanks, political action committees and the like, they constructed a nonpareil policy apparatus which reinvigorated the antigovernment movement with a new intellectual legitimacy backed by fearsome political clout.

Reiser, the center fielder nonpareil of the '40s and '50s, the man who had made the most hits, scored the most runs, and compiled the highest batting average in history, took a ragamuffin team that had finished last in 1968 and led them to first place with a miraculous combination of managerial insight and inspiration.

Yesterday, Wednesday, July 3rd, 1996, I received a well-written letter from a man who never asked to be born in the first place, and who has been a captive of our nonpareil correctional facilities, first as a juvenile offender and then as an adult offender, for many years.

In the southwest they saw rival billows in fantastic patterns, as though a paper marbler had worked through [155] them with his combs making French curls, cascades and winged nonpareil fountains.

Ragle turned around and saw, standing in the blue neon light of the Nonpareil Coach Lines sign, the other soldier.

And by a strange coincidence, we were both chosen for immortality for the very same reason-you by Magnus and I by my captors-that we were the nonpareils of our blood and blueeyed race, that we were taller and more finely made than other men.

And by a strange coincidence, we were both chosen for immortality for the very same reason -- you by Magnus and I by my captors -- that we were the nonpareils of our blood and blueeyed race, that we were taller and more finely made than other men.

That you be nonpareils in this vast wilderness of slaves in which you could be lost like a handful of diamonds in the ocean.

The hundred or so people he owned were as much a normal part of Anne's daily life as the river flowing by, as the subtle coastal change from spring to summer, as the tiny bright bird he and Anne insisted on calling a nonpareil and not a painted bunting as scientific-minded James Hamilton urged.

I refer, of course, to the Tragical History of Doctor Faustus as enacted by the players of the Earl of Nottingham and with the nonpareil Edward Alleyn in the title role.

Warkworth and Lord Fleetwood said that it was rather too bad of the Nonpareil to trifle with the season’.