lone
English
Etymology
Shortened from alone.
Pronunciation
- enPR: lōn
- (UK) IPA(key): /ləʊn/
- (US) IPA(key): /loʊn/
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -əʊn
- Homophone: loan
Adjective
lone (not comparable) (chiefly attributively, otherwise archaic or poetic)
- Solitary; having no companion.
- a lone traveler or watcher
- 1741, William Shenstone, The Judgment of Hercules:
- When I have on those pathless wilds appeared, / And the lone wanderer with my presence cheered.
- 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01:
- The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.
- 2020 January 22, “School director arrested as a suspect in Lop Buri gold shop robbery”, in Thai PBS World[1], Bangkok: Thai Public Broadcasting Service, retrieved 22 January 2020:
- The director of a school in Thailand's central province of Sing Buri is in police custody under suspicion of being the lone perpetrator of a gold shop robbery at a mall in Lop Buri province on January 9th, during which three people, including a two-year old[sic] boy, were murdered and four others [were] wounded.
- Isolated or lonely; lacking companionship.
- Sole; being the only one of a type.
- the lone male audience member at the concert
- Situated by itself or by oneself, with no neighbours.
- a lone house; a lone isle
- 1816, Lord Byron, “Canto III”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Third, London: Printed for John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza LXV:
- By a lone wall a lonelier column rears.
- (archaic) Unfrequented by human beings; solitary.
- c. 1715, Alexander Pope, Epistle To Mrs Teresa Blount:
- Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls, / And leave you on lone woods, or empty walls.
- 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:
- He made a turn or two in the shop, and looked for Hope among the instruments; but they obstinately worked out reckonings for the missing ship, in spite of any opposition he could offer, that ended at the bottom of the lone sea.
- (archaic) Single; unmarried, or in widowhood.
- Collection of Records (1642)
- Queen Elizabeth being a lone woman.
- 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
- A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear.
- Collection of Records (1642)
- (Philippines, politics, of an election or elected position) Not divided into multiple districts.
- Synonym: at-large (US)
- lone congressional district
Synonyms
- (sole): only
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
having no companion
|
isolated
sole
situated with no neighbours
|
Anagrams
- Noël, Leno, Noel, leno, neol., Léon, one L, Nole, noël, Leon, nole, Elno, noel, NOEL, elon, enol, Elon, León
Afrikaans
Noun
lone
- plural of loon
Dutch
Verb
lone
- (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of lonen
Middle English
Noun
lone
- (Northern, West Midlands) alternative form of lane
Slovak
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [ˈlɔɲe]
Noun
lone n
- locative singular of lono
Yola
Noun
lone
- alternative form of lhoan
- 1867, OBSERVATIONS BY THE EDITOR:
- F. brone, eelone, hone, lone, sthone, sthrone.
- E. brand, island, hand, land, stand, strand.
References
- Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 52