[L.] lit. Of one’s or its own kind; peculiar. † Also illiterately as sb., a thing apart, an isolated specimen.
1787. M. Cutler, in Life, etc. (1888), I. 268. The Doctor … thinks it must be a sui generis of that class of animals.
1794. Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), I. 126. Against the existence of the sparry [fluor], as of an acid sui generis, many difficulties were started.
1828. J. P. Smith, Four Disc. (1842), 63. The transcendent case before us is absolutely sui generis.
1854. Poultry Chron., II. 324. The history of this show is ‘sui generis.’
1870. Newman, Gram. Assent, II. vi. 197. Certitude is united to a sentiment sui generis in which it lives and is manifested.
