The word “one” is a pronoun, adjective, or noun referring to a single person or thing, or used as an indefinite reference. Writers use it to denote individuality, singularity, or an example. The examples below are drawn from authentic works to show how “one” appears in real writing.
Real Sentences for One
And now was one to believe that there was nowhere a god of hogs, to whom this hog-personality was precious, to whom these hog-squeals and agonies had a meaning?
Source: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
29 words, 160 characters
A distrust in my own abilities as a writer was, nevertheless, one of the principal causes which prevented me from complying with the suggestions of my advisers.
Source: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
27 words, 160 characters
The Publishers of the Standard Novels, in selecting Frankenstein for one of their series, expressed a wish that I should furnish them with some account of the origin of the story.
Source: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
31 words, 179 characters
As our equipment was crude in the extreme we decided that one of us must return to civilization, purchase the necessary machinery and return with a sufficient force of men properly to work the mine.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
35 words, 198 characters
What I wrote was intended at least for one other eye—my childhood’s companion and friend; but my dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed—my dearest pleasure when free.
Source: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
40 words, 218 characters
There was surely a saloon on the corner—perhaps on all four corners, and some in the middle of the block as well; and each one stretched out a hand to him—each one had a personality of its own, allurements unlike any other.
Source: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
44 words, 225 characters
Captain Carter had a small but beautiful cottage, situated on a bluff overlooking the river, and during one of my last visits, in the winter of 1885, I observed he was much occupied in writing, I presume now, upon this manuscript.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
41 words, 230 characters
Schliemann called himself a “philosophic anarchist”; and he explained that an anarchist was one who believed that the end of human existence was the free development of every personality, unrestricted by laws save those of its own being.
Source: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
38 words, 237 characters
All in the forecastle presently signified their intention of submitting, and, ascending one by one, were pinioned and then thrown on their backs, together with the first six—there being in all, of the crew who were not concerned in the mutiny, twenty-seven.
Source: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
43 words, 258 characters
It lay, he said, stretched full length in the snow with the arms outstretched above the head toward the edge of the bluff, and when he showed me the spot it flashed upon me that it was the identical one where I had seen him on those other nights, with his arms raised in supplication to the skies.
Source: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
58 words, 297 characters
One consideration which deterred me was that, having kept no journal during a greater portion of the time in which I was absent, I feared I should not be able to write, from mere memory, a statement so minute and connected as to have the appearance of that truth it would really possess, barring only the natural and unavoidable exaggeration to which all of us are prone when detailing events which have had powerful influence in exciting the imaginative faculties.
Source: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe
80 words, 465 characters
More examples coming soon.
