lone

1. not comparableSolitary; having no companion.

   a lone traveler or watcher

   3 more examples

   When I have on those pathless wilds appeared, / And the lone wanderer with my presence cheered.

   1741, William Shenstone, The Judgment of Hercules

   The Bat—they called him the Bat.[…]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

   1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01

   The director of a school in Thailand's central province of Sing Buri is in police custody under suspicion of being the lone perpetrator of a gold shop robbery at a mall in Lop Buri province on January 9th, during which three people, including a two-year old^([sic]) boy, were murdered and four others [were] wounded.

   2020 January 22, “School director arrested as a suspect in Lop Buri gold shop robbery”, in Thai PBS World, Bangkok: Thai Public Broadcasting Service, retrieved 22 Jan 2020

2. not comparableIsolated or lonely; lacking companionship.
3. not comparableSole; being the only one of a type.

   the lone male audience member at the concert

   Synonyms: only

4. not comparableSituated by itself or by oneself, with no neighbours.

   a lone house;  a lone isle

   1 more example

   By a lone wall a lonelier column rears.

   1816, Lord Byron, “Canto III”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Third, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza LXV

5. archaicnot comparableUnfrequented by human beings; solitary.

   Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls, / And leave you on lone woods, or empty walls.

   c. 1715, Alexander Pope, Epistle To Mrs Teresa Blount

   1 more example

   He made a turn or two in the shop, and looked for Hope among the instruments; but they obstinately worked out reckonings for the missing ship, in spite of any opposition he could offer, that ended at the bottom of the lone sea.

   1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC

6. archaicnot comparableSingle; unmarried, or in widowhood.

   Queen Elizabeth being a lone woman.

   Collection of Records (1642)

   1 more example

   A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear.

   1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

7. Philippinesnot comparablegovernmentNot divided into multiple districts.

   lone congressional district

   Synonyms: at-large

present singular third person lones · participle present loning · participle past loned · past loned

1. Only used in lone it