[count] 1 : a single thing, person, or group that is a part of something larger
▪ The family is the basic unit of society. ▪ The search party broke up into smaller units. ▪ Their army unit guarded the border. 2 : a part of a hospital where a particular type of care is provided
▪ the intensive care unit ▪ a trauma unit 3 : a particular amount of length, time, money, etc., that is used as a standard for counting or measuring
▪ Feet and meters are units of length. ▪ units of measurement ▪ The dollar is the principal unit of American currency. 4 : a part of a school course or textbook with a particular subject
▪ Our class is finishing up the unit on World War I. 5 US, education : an amount of work used for measuring a student's progress towards earning a degree in a school, college, etc.
▪ Each unit of credit represents 120 classroom hours. 6 business : an individual item of one of the products that a company makes and sells
▪ Last year the company sold 200,000 units of that particular model of car. 7 : a machine or part of a machine or system that has a particular use
▪ an air-conditioning unit ▪ a portable/handheld unit ▪ the computer's central processing unit 8 : one of a number of apartments in a building
▪ The building is divided into eight units. 9 : a set of similar pieces of furniture (such as shelves or cabinets) that are grouped or attached together
▪ a built-in storage/wall unit ▪ (chiefly Brit) a kitchen unit [=a set of kitchen cabinets and appliances]