nonpareil

adj

1. Unequalled, unrivalled; unique.

   “He informed the clerk that he would remain three or four days, inquired concerning the sailing of European steamships, and sank into the blissful inanition of the nonpareil hotel with the contented air of a traveller in his favorite inn.”

   “A veritable artist, possessed of a deftness nonpareil with cotton swab and evacuation-hypo, the medical attaché is known among the shrinking upper classes of petro-Arab nations as the DeBakey of maxillofacial yeast […]”

   “[…]the series stars Samantha Morton as Margaret Wells, a London brothel owner; Ms. Brown Findlay as Charlotte, her older daughter and the city’s courtesan nonpareil; […]”

noun

1. (countable)A person or thing that has no equal; a paragon.

   “My lord and master loves you. O, such love / Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd / The nonpareil of beauty!”

   “King John of France, once prisoner in England, came […] to see the Countess of Salisbury, the nonpareil of those times, and his dear mistress.”

   “(a wren) crept or crawled, just like a true tree-creeper. I was, as I say, quite close, and watched it most attentively. It certainly—as far as good looking can settle it—did not assist itself with the wings. They remained close against the sides, or, if they moved at all, it was imperceptible to my eyes (which, by the way, are non-pareils).”

2. (countable, uncountable)The blue underwing or Clifden nonpareil (Catocala fraxini), a species of moth distributed across the Palearctic; also (obsolete) any of a number of moths of other species.
3. (Australia, archaic, countable, uncountable)In full nonpareil parrot: an eastern rosella, of species Platycercus eximius, a rosella (parrot) native to southeastern Australia.
4. (US, countable, uncountable)A painted bunting (Passerina ciris), a brightly-coloured finch native to North America.
5. (archaic, countable, uncountable)In full nonpareil apple: an apple tasting both sweet and tart which ripens very late in the season; also, the tree producing this fruit.
6. (US, archaic, countable, uncountable)Any of various types of small sweets.
7. (US, broadly, countable, dated, uncountable)A small pellet of white or coloured sugar used as decoration on baked goods and candy.
8. (US, broadly, countable, uncountable)A small, flat chocolate drop covered with such pellets of sugar, similar to a comfit.
9. (US, broadly, countable, uncountable)A caper (“pickled edible flower bud”) of the smallest size.
10. (historical, uncountable)A size of type between ruby and emerald (or, in the United States, between agate and minion), standardized as 6-point; (countable) a slug of this size.

    “I believe that letters which are less than a millimetre and a half (1/17 inch) high, will finally prove injurious to the eye. How little attention has hitherto been paid to this important subject is exemplified in the fact that even oculistic journals and books frequently contain nonpareil, or letters only a millimetre (1/25 inch) high.”

    “A Handbook of Astronomy (cover, brown leather, detached, 5 plates, antique letterpress long primer, author’s footnotes nonpareil, marginal clues brevier, captions small pica).”