Sui generis
Sui generis (; ) is a Latin phrase that means "of its (his, her, their) own kind; in a class by itself; unique."
American anthropology
Attention to symbols, the meaning of which depended almost entirely on their historical and social context, appealed to many Boasians. Leslie White asked of cultural things, "What sort of objects are they? Are they physical objects? Mental objects? Both? Metaphors? Symbols? Reifications?" In "Science of Culture" (1949), he concluded that they are objects ""sui generis""; that is, of their own kind. In trying to define that kind, he hit upon a previously unrealized aspect of symbolization, which he called "the symbolate"—an object created by the act of symbolization. He thus defined culture as "symbolates understood in an extra-somatic context."