individual adj
1. being or characteristic of a single thing or person; "individual drops of rain"; "please mark the individual pages"; "they went their individual ways" [ant: common]
2. separate and distinct from others of the same kind; "mark the individual pages"; "on a case-by-case basis" [syn: case-by-case, item-by-item]
3. characteristic of or meant for a single person or thing; "an individual serving"; "separate rooms"; "single occupancy"; "a single bed" [syn: separate, single(a)]
4. concerning one person exclusively; "we all have individual cars"; "each room has a private bath" [syn: individual(a), private] n
5. a human being; "there was too much for one person to do" [syn: person, someone, somebody, mortal, human, soul]
6. a single organism

Individual \In`di*vid"u*al\, n.
1. A single person, animal, or thing of any kind; a thing or being incapable of separation or division, without losing its identity; especially, a human being; a person. --Cowper. An object which is in the strict and primary sense one, and can not be logically divided, is called an individual. --Whately. That individuals die, his will ordains. --Dryden.
2. (Zo["o]l.) (a) An independent, or partially independent, zooid of a compound animal. (b) The product of a single egg, whether it remains a single animal or becomes compound by budding or fission.

Individual \In`di*vid"u*al\ (?; 135), a. [L. individuus indivisible; pref. in- not + dividuus divisible, fr. dividere to divide: cf. F. individuel. See Divide.]
1. Not divided, or not to be divided; existing as one entity, or distinct being or object; single; one; as, an individual man, animal, or city. Mind has a being of its own, distinct from that of all other things, and is pure, unmingled, individual substance. --A. Tucker. United as one individual soul. --Milton.

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As commonly used, an individual is a person or any specific object in a collection. In the 15th century and earlier, and also today within the fields of statistics and metaphysics, individual means "indivisible", typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning "a person." (q.v. "The problem of proper names"). From the seventeenth century on, individual indicates separateness, as in individualism. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires.

In his statement Cogito ergo sum ("I think therefore I am"), René Descartes posits the notion the individual subject, distinct from the world around him or her. This is the most famous articulation of subject-object dualism (see subject-object problem) in the Western philosophical tradition.

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