monopoly
noun
Simple meaning
Exclusive control or possession of something.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
muhnahpuhleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
məˈnɑpəli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Exclusive control or possession of something
“They have no monopoly on intelligence.”
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.
metonymic
The holder (person, company or other) of such market domination in one of the above manners.
The privilege granting the exclusive right to exert such control.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Exclusive control or possession of something
Used this way, monopoly is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“They have no monopoly on intelligence.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “monopoly on …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: monopoly on …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use monopoly
- “They have no monopoly on intelligence.”noun
- “A monopoly on silver.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A board used for playing monopoly.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.