Definition of "unary" in English

adjective

1. Consisting of or involving a single element or component.

2. (mathematics, programming, computer engineering) Of an operation, function, procedure, or logic gate, taking exactly one operand, argument, parameter, or input; having domain of dimension 1.

   • Negation is a unary operation.

noun

1. (mathematics) The unary, or bijective base-1, numeral system.

2. (information theory) Unary coding, an entropy encoding for natural numbers.