monotonic
adjective
Simple meaning
Of a sequence or function.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mahnuhtahnikSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmɑnəˈtɑnɪk
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.
adjective
mathematics
Of a sequence or function; consistently increasing and never decreasing or consistently decreasing and never increasing in value
mathematics
Of a function: that either never decreases or never increases as its independent variable increases.
Uttered in a monotone; monotonous.
Of or using the Greek system of diacritics which discards the breathings and employs a single accent to indicate stress. It replaced polytonic system in 1982.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of a sequence or function; consistently increasing and never decreasing or consistently decreasing and never increasing in value
Used this way, monotonic is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a mathematical use: it is defined precisely and belongs to working with figures and calculations rather than to ordinary conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Mathematics
- Geometry
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Of a sequence or function.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: of a sequence or function
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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.