Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A mountain or rocky mass that has resisted erosion and stands isolated in an essentially level area. Also called inselberg.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In physical geography, an isolated hill or mountain rising over a peneplain, and surviving because of the superior resistance of its rocks or of its distance from the larger rivers; a residual hill.
Wiktionary
Etymologies
- From the name of Mount Monadnock in New England, which derives from an Abenaki word, perhaps menonadenak, menonadenek ("smooth mountain") or menadenak, menadenek ("isolated mountain"), from aden ("mountain"). (Wiktionary)
- After Mount Monadnock, a peak of southwest New Hampshire. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I so much need help figuring out what to do with "monadnock" … dbadass Says:”
“It's named after a monadnock in North Carolina, Pilot Mountain.”
“The lowland of the Sjaunja and Muddus, to the east consist of a monadnock plain, that is to say a wide plain with isolated low, conical hills, covered by taiga vegetation and lakes.”
“Among its low gentle heights there rises an occasional little monadnock like Chapel Hill, where the University of North Carolina lies on a rugged eminence which strikingly recalls New England.”
“It is plain," he said, "that the basalt monadnock on which we stand is a carboniferous upthrust of metamorphosed schists, shales and conglomerate, probably Mesozoic or at least early Silurian.”
“Pikes Peak stands sentinel-like seventy-five miles east of the range, a gigantic monadnock, remainder and reminder of a former range long ages worn away.”
“It is a special kind of rare mountain called a monadnock.”
“Ed said there's another monadnock north of Sacramento.”
“Pilot Mountain, a quartzite monadnock rising to a peak 2,421 feet (738 m) above sea level, is one of the most distinctive natural features in the state of North”
“He writes on a peneplain from which his monadnock rises.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘monadnock’.
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Landforms
A Cyclopedia of Landforms.
plain, mountain, canyon, cliff, hill, arch, cave, plateau, mesa, butte, chimney, peneplain and 169 more...
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250 Cherry-Picked Words
Juicy words for the intermediate and advanced speller
consomme, miniaceous, nankeen, smaragdine, stramineous, vitellary, allemande, beguine, bransle, charabanc, margaritaceous, chaconne and 238 more...
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End in -ock
Inspired by fbharjo (see spitchcock).
spitchcock, hillock, willock, peacock, pajock, penock, yapock, sycock, bittock, bawcock, burrock, cammock and 168 more...
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New Hampshire
New Hampshire, new hampshire, Concord, Franconia Notch, Willa Cather, Mary Baker Eddy, Polly's Pancake P..., Old Man of the Mo..., Daniel Webster, Manchester, White Mountains, Live Free or Die and 10 more...
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All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
anacoluthon, defenestration, hypnopomp, hypnagogue, idioglossia, panopticon, tatterdemalion, abalone, caltrop, miasma, paroxysm, smalt and 475 more...
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Wordplayer's Wonderful Words
chaparral, grotesque, knork, newsmonger, thitherwards, fackeltanz, kakistocracy, sforzando, compendium, frump, inquere, phosphene and 100 more...
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jagosaurus's favorites
Words I like mostly because of the way they sound and feel.
ticonderoga, petulance, snark, estimable, chickahominy, feline, gezellig, gneiss, shit, willy-nilly, shelter, coda and 366 more...
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Words that were new to me
but now they're not because I looked them up. In cases of polysemy or homography, *of course* it was the oddest meaning that stumped me. ;)
Procrustean bed, idem sonans, hob, backcap, quango, cheap-jack, pantechnicon, churrigueresco, chopfallen, maritorious, supererogation, catimini and 212 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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oldecat's Words
noncommutative, morphodynamics, ferrywoman, circumcircle, acceleration, inactivity, biodiesel, corrosion, quadrilogy, imprimitivity, normalizer, teleosemantics and 240 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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favorite words
sawbones, grackle, celadon, brio, loam, trull, mint, saliva, serape, frisson, impasto, reek and 547 more...
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Lay of the Land
all kinds of scapes
steppe, veld, veldt, campo, llano, taiga, krummholz, elfinwood, tundra, sward, lea, heath and 197 more...
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Geology Words
The descriptive science described.
earth, lithosphere, mineral, convection, heat flow, ore, deep time, fossil, formation, rock, tectonics, extinction and 281 more...
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Geology
baraboo, monadnock, peneplain, endrumpf, peneplanation, cairngorm, paleooology, stream capture, allochthon, slickensides, graywacke, tectonics and 56 more...
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Geographical Fun
the Earth's geographic beauty & diversity.
arroyo, atoll, badlands, barrier island, berm, box canyon, cataract, chasm, escarpment, estuary, grotto, gulch and 54 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for monadnock.

milosrdenstvi Possible having something to do with the fearsome monads?! Mar 3, 2010
super-beanie I always think of the entire state of New Hampshire seeing this word. Strong word. Mar 3, 2010
sionnach Who are all these people cluttering up the image search results? I mean, I'm sure they're lovely human beings, but - more monadnock, less human interference, please! Jan 24, 2009
pterodactyl I once spent a fascinating three hours scouring Google Earth for monadnocks -- most of them look spectacular with the 3D terrain feature turned on. Jan 24, 2009
sionnach Even though I know this term refers to a kind of topographical feature, why do I always think of mad monks when I see it? Jan 23, 2009
bilby Also known as an inselberg. Jan 23, 2009
chained_bear Hmm. That explains Mount Monadnock State Park... Sep 23, 2008
mollusque A hill of resistant rock surmounting a peneplain. Dec 11, 2007