single out

single out (third-person singular simple present singles out, present participle singling out, simple past and past participle singled out)

1. (transitive) To select one from a group and treat differently.

   Eddie singled out his favorite marble from the bag.

   Yvonne always wondered why Ernest had singled her out of the group of giggling girls she hung around with.

   • 1915, Austen Chamberlain, speech on April 16, 1915

     Sir John French says that if he is to single out one regiment in the fighting at Ypres it is the Worcesters he would name? I do plead that some person should record these events, so that our history, national and local, may be the richer for them, that the children may be stimulated to do their duty by the knowledge of the way in which our soldiers are doing theirs to-day.

   • 1974, Robert M[aynard] Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, →ISBN:

     He singled out aspects of Quality such as unity, vividness, authority, economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance, precision, proportion, depth and so on; kept each of these as poorly defined as Quality itself, but demonstrated them by the same class reading techniques.

   • 2011 December 29, Keith Jackson, “SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0”, in Daily Record‎:

     This time it was Celtic who were forced to hit on the break and when they did, they singled out Broadfoot.

   • 2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real rail wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 53:

     It also singled out ten routes (all closed except Leeds-Bradford/Ilkley) to show how costs outstripped earnings, without mention of what through-journey revenue they generated for the main lines to which they were connected.

• in the crosshairs

• loungiest, touseling