monotony

English

Etymology

From French monotonie, from Late Latin monotonia, from Ancient Greek μονοτονία (monotonía, “sameness of tone, monotony”).

Pronunciation

(General American) IPA^(key): /məˈnɑtəni/, /məˈnɑtni/
(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /məˈnɒtəni/
Audio (US) (file)
Hyphenation: mo‧not‧o‧ny

Noun

monotony (plural monotonies)

Tedium as a result of repetition or a lack of variety.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), OCLC 630079698, page 24:
  It matters little to trace the rapidity of the land journey, or the monotony of the sea voyage—alike unmarked by adventure. Robert Evelyn landed at Southampton,...
- 1907, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 1, in Through the Magic Door‎, archived from the original on 12 April 2011:
  Yet second-hand romance and second-hand emotion are surely better than the dull, soul-killing monotony which life brings to most of the human race.
(mathematics) The property of a monotonic function.
The quality of having an unvarying tone or pitch.

Synonyms

(tedium): boredom, sameness; see also Thesaurus:tedium

Antonyms

polytony

Derived terms

monotone
monotonous

Translations

tedium

Bulgarian: монотонност (bg) f (monotonnost), еднообразие (bg) n (ednoobrazie)
Catalan: monotonia f
Danish: monotoni
Finnish: yksitoikkoisuus (fi)
French: monotonie (fr) f
Galician: monotonía (gl) f
German: Eintönigkeit (de) f, Monotonie (de) f
Greenlandic: assigiiaamik periaaseqarneq
Irish: leadrán m, liostacht f
Maori: takeo
Plautdietsch: Lankwiel m, Äwadreessichkjeit f
Portuguese: monotonia (pt) f
Romanian: monotonie (ro)
Spanish: monotonía (es) f

property of mathematical function

Chinese:
Mandarin: 單調性／单调性 (dāndiàoxìng)
Galician: monotonía (gl) f
German: Monotonie (de) f
Greek: μονοτονία (el) f (monotonía)
Icelandic: einhalli m
Portuguese: monotonia (pt) f
Romanian: monotonie (ro)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Dutch: ^{(please verify)} eentonigheid (nl) f
Irish: ^{(please verify)} aontonacht f

Anagrams

ontonomy