A keyword that specifies whether or not each value of the index must be unique. If you try to store the same value twice in a column or set of columns that have an index defined as UNIQUE, SQL returns an error message the second time and does not store or modify the row that contains the value. This is true for null values as well as any other value. If you specify UNIQUE, SQL checks as it executes the CREATE INDEX statement to see if the table already contains duplicate values for the index.