one [OE] Like the other main number words, one goes back to Old English. It shares an ancient root with Latin unus, and so is linked with such words as unique [E17th], unity [ME], union [ME] and unison [LME]. The one that got away is a term for something desirable that has eluded capture. The phrase comes from the angler’s traditional way of trying to impress by boasting ‘You should have seen the one that got away’. A one-horse town is a small town with hardly any facilities, particularly in the USA. Such towns are associated with the Wild West, and the term is first recorded in a US magazine of 1855. In 1853, though, there is a record of a specific place of that name: ‘The principal mining localities are…Whiskey Creek, One Horse Town, One Mule Town, Clear Creek [etc.].’ Also American is the one-trick pony, a person with only one talent or area of expertise. This goes back to the days of travelling circuses in the early 20th century. It would be a poor circus whose pony had only one trick. Once and future refers to someone or something that is eternal, enduring, or constant. It probably comes from T. H. White’s The Once and Future King (1958), a series of novels about King Arthur. In White’s story the enchanter Merlyn says to Arthur: ‘Do you know what is going to be written on your tombstone? Hic jacet Arthurus Rex quondam Rexque futurus. Do you remember your Latin? It means, the once and future king.’ A bad experience can make you wary of the same thing happening again, a feeling which might be summed up concisely with the words once bitten, twice shy [M18th], although in the USA you might say instead once burned, twice shy.