monopoly

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: "Monopoly frequently ... arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individuals” ( Milton Friedman).
2. n. Law A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
3. n. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity.
4. n. A commodity or service so controlled.
5. n. Exclusive possession or control: arrogantly claims to have a monopoly on the truth.
6. n. Something that is exclusively possessed or controlled: showed that scientific achievement is not a male monopoly.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An exclusive privilege to carry on a traffic.
2. n. Specifically, in Eng. constitutional hist., and hence sometimes in American law, such an exclusive privilege when granted by the crown or state to an individual, association, or corporation, for the sake of the pecuniary advantage of its exclusiveness. A privilege not granted by the state, but secured by buying up the article, is termed by the English law engrossing. The legal objection to a monopoly, in this sense of the word, is that it can be secured only by forbidding all other citizens except the favored grantee to exercise a common-law right. Exclusive privileges granted by the state to a limited number of persons for the sake of enabling the state the better to regulate the traffic for the protection of the rest of the community, as in case of banking franchises, liquor traffic, etc., are not deemed monopolies, although the same privileges would be, if conferred on a single or a very few grantees, for the sake of the pecuniary benefit to them. So the exclusive privileges conferred on inventors and authors, by the patent and copyright laws, for the sake of the encouragement of the arts and literature, and extending only to articles originally devised under that encouragement, are not deemed monopolies. Both these classes of grants have, however, been condemned by some as partaking of the character of monopolies.
3. n. In political economics, and as used in a general sense in law, such an exclusive privilege to carry on a traffic, or deal in or control a given class of articles, as will enable the holder to raise prices materially above what they would be if the traffic or dealing were free to citizens generally. In this sense, that exclusive control of a particular kind of product which results from the legitimate ownership of the only land from which it can be obtained, as in the case of some mineral waters, or earths, or ores, is sometimes spoken of as a natural monopoly, in contrast to the artificial monopolies created by state grant. See virtual monopoly, below.
4. n. That which is the subject of a monopoly: as, in Bengal opium is a monopoly.
5. n. The possession or assumption of anything to the exclusion of other possessors: thus, a man is popularly said to have a monopoly of any business of which he has acquired complete control.
6. n. Loosely, a company or corporation which enjoys a monopoly.

Wiktionary

1. n. A situation, by legal privilege or other agreement, in which solely one party (company, cartel etc.) exclusively provides a particular product or service, dominating that market and generally exerting powerful control over it.
2. n. An exclusive control over the trade or production of a commodity or service through exclusive possession.
3. n. The privilege granting the exclusive right to exert such control
4. n. The market thus controlled
5. n. The holder (person, company or other) of such market domination in one of the the above manners.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The exclusive power, or privilege of selling a commodity; the exclusive power, right, or privilege of dealing in some article, or of trading in some market; sole command of the traffic in anything, however obtained
2. n. Exclusive possession.
3. n. colloq. The commodity or other material thing to which the monopoly relates.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (economics) a market in which there are many buyers but only one seller
2. n. a board game in which players try to gain a monopoly on real estate as pieces advance around the board according to the throw of a die
3. n. exclusive control or possession of something