Noun

Singular unit

Plural units

unit (plural units)

1. (sciences) A standard measure of a quantity.

   The centimetre is a unit of length.

2. An organized group comprising people and/or equipment.

   He was a member of a special police unit.

3. (military) A self-contained military organization; usually a battalion, regiment, or naval ship.
4. (military, informal) A member of a military organization.

   The fifth tank brigade moved in with 20 units. (i.e., 20 tanks)

5. (US, military) Any military element whose structure is prescribed by competent authority, such as a table of organization and equipment; specifically, part of an organization.
6. (US, military) An organization title of a subdivision of a group in a task force.
7. (US, military) A standard or basic quantity into which an item of supply is divided, issued, or used. In this meaning, also called unit of issue.
8. (US, military) With regard to Reserve Components of the Armed Forces, denotes a Selected Reserve unit organized, equipped, and trained for mobilization to serve on active duty as a unit or to augment or be augmented by another unit. Headquarters and support functions without wartime missions are not considered units.
9. (algebra) An element of a ring having a multiplicative inverse. (Formerly just the identity element 1_R of a ring.)
10. (commerce) An item which may be sold singly.

    We shipped nearly twice as many units this month as last month.

11. (UK) (electricity) One kilowatt-hour (as recorded on an electricity meter).

Synonyms

• (identity element): identity element, unit element

Unit may refer to:

In mathematics:

• Unit vector, a vector with length equal to 1
• Unit circle, the circle with radius equal to 1, centered at the origin
• Unit interval, the interval of all real numbers between 0 and 1
• Imaginary unit, i, whose square is -1
• Root of unity, a complex number, a power of which is 1
• Unit (ring theory), an element that is invertible with respect to ring multiplication
• Unit type, a type that allows only one value
• In category theory, a natural transformation (called the unit) from the identity functor to the composition of two adjoint functors
• In statistics, a unit is one member of the class of objects being studied

In science and technology:

• Unit of measurement, a fundamental quantity of measurement
• In biochemistry, a unit is the measure of enzyme activity
• Unit of electricity, one kilowatt hour of mains electricity
• Units conversion by factor-label, a widely used approach for performing Conversion of units
• Unit (chemical engineering), a unit is a vessel or pipe in a chemical plant (see unit operation)
• Units (software), a cross-platform command-line computer program that does unit conversion
• Functional unit, a component of a computer system such as the CPU
• In blood transfusion, one unit of blood is equal to one pint
• Unit of alcohol, 10 millilitres of pure ethanol in the United Kingdom
• In a 19-inch rack a rack unit is a standard height of 1.75 inches (44 mm)
• In computer programming, unit testing is a method of testing that verifies the individual units of source code are working properly.

In entertainment and the arts:

• UNIT - the Unified Intelligence Taskforce in Doctor Who
• Unit (album), an indie pop album by the Australian band Regurgitator
• G-Unit, a hip-hop music group
• The Units, a synthpunk band from San Francisco from 1978 to 1984
• The Unit, an American television series
• Second unit, a team that shoots footage which is of lesser importance for the final motion picture
• Unit of action, a discrete piece of action (or beat) in a theatrical presentation
• UNIT Post Production, a post production company, based in Soho, London
• Unit (art collective), a British artists' collective

In other uses:

• Unit (housing), in Australia/New Zealand - a self-contained suite of rooms within a set of similar dwellings
• A unit, or apartment, can refer to a self-contained section of a building to be rented or otherwise occupied by a party
• Multiple unit, a passenger train whose carriages have their own motors
• Military units, including:
  • Unit 101, an Israeli special operations unit
  • Unit 731, a covert medical experiment unit of the Imperial Japanese Army
  • Unit 1391, an Israeli torture facility
• Strategic business unit
• In real time strategy games, a unit describes an individual (or squad, depending on the game) infantry or vehicle.