Meaning & use
unify
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To bring separate people, groups or places together so that they act or exist as one.
Grammar: Needs an object: the coach unified the team.
Patterns
- unify something
- unify people behind something
The new leader hoped to unify the divided party.
A shared goal helped unify the neighbors.
The treaty unified the two regions into one country.
verbtransitive
To make different parts of something fit together in one consistent whole.
Grammar: Takes things like designs, systems or themes as objects.
Patterns
- unify something under something
A single color palette unifies the whole website.
The editor unified the styles of the chapters.
Engineers worked to unify the old and new systems.
verbintransitiveformal
To become joined into one whole.
Grammar: No object; the groups become one by themselves.
Patterns
- unify around something
The groups slowly unified around a common plan.
The smaller states unified in the nineteenth century.
Word forms
| third person singular | unifies |
|---|---|
| past tense | unified |
| past participle | unified |
| -ing form | unifying |
Common combinations
- unify a country
- The king tried to unify the country under one law.
- unify the team
- A good captain can unify the team.
- unify around a goal
- Voters unified around a single candidate.
- a unifying theme
- Loss is the unifying theme of the poems.
- unify disparate groups
- She worked to unify disparate groups of volunteers.
Synonyms and how they differ
- unite
- Unite is the everyday word and often stresses people joining by choice, while unify stresses making one consistent whole.
- merge
- Merge means to blend into one and lose separate identity, which unify does not always require.
- combine
- Combine is general and can suit mixing ingredients, but unify suggests a deeper, more purposeful bringing together.
- integrate
- Integrate means fitting parts into a larger system so they work together, often used for technology or society.
Opposites
Word family
- unification noun
- the process of becoming one
- unified adjective
- joined together as one
- unifier noun
- a person or thing that brings together
- unifying adjective
- bringing things together
- unity noun
- the state of being joined as one
Commonly confused: unify or uniform?
unify vs uniform
Uniform means the same throughout, while unify is the action of making things one.
Practice
The festival helped ___ the town after the long dispute.
Choose one answer.
Unify means bring together as one, which suits healing a dispute. The other verbs end in -ify too but mean make simple, bigger or louder.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “unify”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.