Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Philosophy An indivisible, impenetrable unit of substance viewed as the basic constituent element of physical reality in the metaphysics of Leibniz.
- n. Biology A single-celled microorganism, especially a flagellate protozoan of the genus Monas.
- n. Chemistry An atom or a radical with valence 1.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In metaphysics, an individual and indivisible substance. The word was introduced into philosophy by Giordano Bruno to denote the minimum parts of substances supposed by him to be at once psychical and material. In the philosophy of Leibnitz the conception of the monad is that of an absolutely unextended substance existing in space, its existence consisting in its activities, which are ideas; and the universe was conceived by him as made up of such existences. The history of each monad follows an internal law, and all interaction between the monads is excluded; but there is a preestablished harmony between these laws for the different monads. (See
Leibnitzian .) The Leibnitzian theory of the monad was, in many particulars, revived by Hermann Lotze. - n. In biology:
- n. Any simple single-celled organism. The name covers a great many similar but not necessarily related unicellular organisms, some of which are monads in sense , others being plants; others again are free flagellate cells representing an embryonic condition of some other organism or of wholly indeterminate character.
- n. In zoology, specifically, a flagellate infusorian; one of the Infusoria flagellata, characterized by the possession of one or two long whip-like flagella, and generally exhibiting an endoplast and a contractile vacuole. The word in this sense is derived from the name of the genus Monas.
- n. In chem., an element whose atoms have the lowest valence or atomicity, which valence is therefore taken as unity.
- In chem. and biology, of or pertaining to monads; of the nature of a monad; monadi-form.
Wiktionary
- n. An ultimate atom, or simple, unextended point; something ultimate and indivisible.
- n. mathematics, computing A monoid in the category of endofunctors.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An ultimate atom, or simple, unextended point; something ultimate and indivisible.
- n. (Philos. of Leibnitz) The elementary and indestructible units which were conceived of as endowed with the power to produce all the changes they undergo, and thus determine all physical and spiritual phenomena.
- n. (Zoöl.) One of the smallest flagellate Infusoria; esp., the species of the genus Monas, and allied genera.
- n. (Biol.) A simple, minute organism; a primary cell, germ, or plastid.
- n. (Chem.) An atom or radical whose valence is one, or which can combine with, be replaced by, or exchanged for, one atom of hydrogen.
WordNet 3.0
- n. (chemistry) an atom having a valence of one
- n. (biology) a single-celled microorganism (especially a flagellate protozoan)
- n. a singular metaphysical entity from which material properties are said to derive
Etymologies
- Latin monas, monad-, unit, from Greek, from monos, single; see men-4 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The term monad is, however, generally understood in reference to the philosophy of”
“Since Leibniz 'time the term monad has been used by various philosophers to designate indivisible centres of force, but as a general rule these units are not understood to possess the power of representation or perception, which is the distinguishing characteristic of the Leibnizian monad.”
“Note 127: "According to Capella," Pérez-Gómez notes, "the monad is all that is good, desirable and essential — a notion that was explicitly introduced into Renaissance theology by Nicholas of Cusa in his influential work De docta ignorantia.”
Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro
“Each monad is made up of 25 cities, each existing within their own sections of 40 floors.”
Robert Silverberg's "The World Inside": Overpopulation, Sex and Sensibility
“The word monad is used by the neo-Platonists to signify the One; for instance, in the letters of the Christian Platonist Synesius, God is described as the Monad of”
“This second abstraction, "thrown off" by our pure self-consciousness just as the first one is "thrown off" by our pure reason, becomes therefore an intervening monad which exists midway between the monad which is pure "subject" -- if that can be called a monad at all -- and the actual individual soul which is the living reality of both these thought-projections.”
“The monad, which is opposed to the indefinite dyad, is just one of three gods for Numenius (Fr. 11 Des Places), who here follows Moderatus to a degree.”
“Below this first principle are a second one, which is also called the monad, and the indefinite dyad.”
“For in the numbers the infinite in the direction of reduction is not present, as the monad is the smallest; nor is the infinite in the direction of increase, for the parts number only up to the decad.”
“In short, the monad was the keystone of Bruno's all-embracing uni - versal scheme.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘monad’.
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Substancestry
Mysterious and theoretical substances and "stuff" of legend. More emphasis on the ancient, mystical, mythical, folklore, mathematical, and scientific. I won't be listing too many "sci-fi" or comed...
ylem, ichor, aether, ectoplasm, impossible object, quark star, eucharist, pixie dust, eitr, elixir of life, philosopher's stone, alkahest and 126 more...
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Palynology
List of terms used in the study and classification of pollen and spores - both fossil and modern.
tetrad, abporal, ectoaperture, lacuna, grain, spore, lophate, acalymmate, monad, polyad, hexad, calymmate and 513 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Leibniz
Anything to do with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm..., monad, stepped reckoner, Leibniz wheel, Stepped Reckoner, calculus, li, pandochal lens, cata-dioptric tube, Theodicy, theodicy and 29 more...
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-ad
of or relating to; used to form names
monad, Iliad, cycad, gonad, dyad, triad, tetrad, pentad, hexad, heptad, octad, ennead and 5 more...
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billfence's Words
quotidian, flux, sawbuck, horsefeathers, chalcedony, harp, no, fox, tennis, badminton, flue, charm and 186 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1402 more...
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Not Quite As Awful As They Sound
masticate, absquatulate, adumbrate, afflatus, fetial, anile, bilabial, cineaste, smew, copse, piebald, testudinate and 156 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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drspork's Words
solecism, dithyrambic, monomaniac, tautology, perspicacious, novena, chthonian, miasma, provender, carom, fuliginous, protoplasm and 102 more...
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the Island of the Day Before
phoebus, promontory, succor, indite, sickle, cerulean, tenebrous, specter, bastion, clemency, miasma, nocturlabe and 112 more...
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19 c.
some of the interesting words i've had to look up while reading 19th century lit
maugre, connate, alembic, azote, vaticination, valetudinarian, dight, scutcheon, lammergeyer, chamois, asseverate, prebendary and 199 more...
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Clearinghouse
For stuff to simply reside.
calcar, pinion, espadrille, antipodes, peregrine, cormorant, tanager, vireo, farrago, undervest, passerine, oscine and 881 more...
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Words I Learned on FreeRice.com
A place for me to keep all these weird words, whether I guessed them correctly or not.
pennoncel, serval, tautological, redact, ganef, candent, shaitan, bifid, osteal, ensiform, helve, ecdysis and 100 more...
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zachg's Words
verisimilitude, phenomenology, polyvalent, aleatoric, ontology, epistemology, solipsism, monad, hermeneutic, heuristic, performative, constative and 142 more...
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Words that make you go hmmmm...
Interesting words you probably won't hear in your day-to-day.
maxwell, mooncalf, quagga, glaikit, musquash, lingam, haruspex, qindarka, chthonic, ipomoea, azimuthal, valuta and 304 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for monad.

JonChristopher11 He screamed monad! To all. To set the tone and start buisness. Feb 13, 2012
seanahan 18 listings, but not a single comment. There's some pretty interesting stuff here. Read the Wikipedia entry and discuss. Mar 30, 2009