As commonly used, an individual is a person or any specific object in a collection. In the 15th century and earlier, and also today within the fields of statistics and metaphysics, individual means indivisible, typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning a person. (q.v. The problem of proper names). From the seventeenth century on, individual indicates separateness, as in individualism. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires.
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