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unilateral
[ yoo-nuh-lat-er-uhl ]
adjective
- relating to, occurring on, or involving one side only:
unilateral development; a unilateral approach.
- undertaken or done by or on behalf of one side, party, or faction only; not mutual:
a unilateral decision; unilateral disarmament.
- having only one side or surface; without a reverse side or inside, as a Möbius strip.
- Law.
- pertaining to a contract that can be formed only when the party to whom an offer is made renders the performance for which the offeror bargains.
- pertaining to a contract in which obligation rests on only one party, as a binding promise to make a gift.
- Botany. having all the parts disposed on one side of an axis, as an inflorescence.
- through forebears of one sex only, as through either the mother's or father's line. Compare bilateral ( def 5 ).
- Phonetics. (of an l -sound) characterized by passage of air on only one side of the tongue.
unilateral
/ ˌjuːnɪˈlætərəl /
adjective
- of, having, affecting, or occurring on only one side
- involving or performed by only one party of several
unilateral disarmament
- law (of contracts, obligations, etc) made by, affecting, or binding one party only and not involving the other party in reciprocal obligations
- botany having or designating parts situated or turned to one side of an axis
- sociol relating to or tracing the line of descent through ancestors of one sex only Compare bilateral
- phonetics denoting an (l) sound produced on one side of the tongue only
Derived Forms
- ˌuniˈlateralism, noun
- ˌuniˈlaterally, adverb
Other Words From
- u·ni·lat·er·al·i·ty [yoo-n, uh, -lat-, uh, -, ral, -i-tee], noun
- u·ni·lat·er·al·ly adverb
Word History and Origins
Origin of unilateral1
Example Sentences
In practice, just as the decision to enter was regarded as a unilateral right by the United States, articulated in policy like the Eisenhower doctrine, so was the decision to withdraw — even if that left Afghanistan to the brutal Taliban.
He said her unilateral overreach would leave a scar on the House’s integrity.
Even if your employer thought less visibility and a less challenging position would mean less strain on your mental health, that’s not the employer’s unilateral call to make.
Take New Hampshire, where state law gives Secretary of State Bill Gardner unilateral power to move the primary date as necessary to protect the state’s distinction of hosting the cycle’s first presidential primary.
Statehood would be a unilateral gift to Democrats in a Senate that is at the moment evenly divided and a House that is within reach for the GOP next year.
Under these circumstances, the kind of unilateral executive action Obama is undertaking will become more and more common.
At the same time, Democrats lost ground, now maintaining unilateral control in just six states, down from 11 before the midterms.
To be clear, unilateral Democratic control is just as problematic as the reverse.
If the president takes unilateral action to legalize millions of people, King said, “it will create a constitutional crisis.”
He spoke to Putin on June 17 and came away offering a “unilateral cease-fire.”
Your State Department has been distributing judicious hints that a unilateral policy toward Franco will upset the apple cart.
The body of the rules of this law can be altered by common consent only, not by a unilateral declaration on the part of one State.
The object of treaties is always an obligation, whether mutual between all the parties or unilateral on the part of one only.
In some cases of unilateral tubal abortion the operator has cleared out the tubal mole and clot, and left the tube.
Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature.
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