Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having only one syllable.
  • adjective Characterized by or consisting of monosyllables.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Consisting of one syllable: as, a monosyllabic word.
  • Consisting of words of one syllable: as, a monosyllabic verse.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Being a monosyllable, or composed of monosyllables

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Consisting of one syllable.
  • adjective Using monosyllables, speaking in monosyllables; curt.
  • noun a word consisting of one syllable

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective having or characterized by or consisting of one syllable

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Late Latin monosyllabicus, from Latin monosyllabus, from Hellenistic Ancient Greek μονοσύλλαβος.

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Examples

  • (Does anyone else get a kick out of the fact that "monosyllabic" is such a polysyllabic word?)

    Readability 2005

  • (Does anyone else get a kick out of the fact that "monosyllabic" is such a polysyllabic word?)

    March 2005 2005

  • Speaking in monosyllabic 2-3 word posts, he was also the easiest to ignore.

    Think Progress » Congressional GOP wants to keep Steele ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ 2010

  • Although Meredith admits that she’s willing to talk to him in short monosyllabic sentences laced with disdain and conempt, Alex expects that according to girl rules she’s obligated to hate him.

    grey’s anatomy recap : eleanor rigby is not an island (season 2, episode 11) | Seattle Metblogs 2005

  • Unlike most folks, the Goth dwarf preferred to communicate in short, monosyllabic bursts.

    Venom Jennifer Estep 2010

  • Unlike most folks, the Goth dwarf preferred to communicate in short, monosyllabic bursts.

    Venom Jennifer Estep 2010

  • Unlike most folks, the Goth dwarf preferred to communicate in short, monosyllabic bursts.

    Venom Jennifer Estep 2010

  • Chinese speak a monosyllabic language, 137; their genius and its limitations, 138, 139; oldest national religion of, 180, 181; their "docenal" and "sexagesimal" system of counting, 230-231.

    Chaldea From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria 1879

  • If we answer in the affirmative, how can we explain coming repeatedly across this sort of writing, "lacu IN ipso" (XII. 56), that is, a monosyllabic preposition placed between a substantive and an adjective or pronoun, a kind of composition found in the poets, but disapproved by the prose-writers, who, if so placing a preposition, used a dissyllable and put the adjective first.

    Tacitus and Bracciolini The Annals Forged in the XVth Century John Wilson Ross 1852

  • Byronic rhyme, for such a four-word monosyllabic liaison — this unwieldy oronym — yet it is strongly urged upon the ear by the otherwise jolting truncation, syllabic and grammatical both, of the echoic "as we!" [

    Phonemanography: Romantic to Victorian 2008

Comments

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  • "Monosyllabic isn't." -skipvia

    October 21, 2007

  • That's fun, how about unaffixedly.

    October 21, 2007