Monotony

Definition: Monotony

Monotony

Noun

1. The quality of wearisome constancy and lack of variety; "he had never grown accustomed to the monotony of his work"; "he hated the sameness of the food the college served".

Date "monotony" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references)

Synonym: Monotony

Synonym: sameness (n). (additional references)

Monotony is continuation without variation; but not necessarily the extreme of complete stagnation and constancy. The notion of monotony has therefore not exclusively negative connotations, but has also received appreciation as in

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. Albert Einstein.

The mathematical specification of monotony is called Monotonicity.

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Equality	Noun: equality, parity, coextension, symmetry, balance, poise; evenness, monotony, level.
Identity	Monotony, tautology; (repetition).
Repetition	Noun: repetition, iteration, reiteration, harping, recurrence, succession, run; battology, tautology; monotony, tautophony; rhythm; diffuseness, pleonasm, redundancy.
Uniformity	Noun: uniformity; homogeneity, homogeneousness; consistency; connaturality, connaturalness; homology; accordance; conformity; agreement; consonance, uniformness. regularity, constancy, even tenor,.routine; monotony.
Weariness	Wearisomeness, tediousness; Adjective: dull work, tedium, monotony, twice-told tale.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Monotony

English words defined with "monotony": ill ♦ sameness, sick. (references)

Specialty definitions using "monotony": HAMED. (references)

Etymologies containing "monotony": monotone. (references)

Domain	Usage
Lyrics	Stay in one spot, another day of monotony (Lose Yourself; performing artist: EMINEM)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	100 Ways to Make Sex Sensational and 100% Safe: Enjoy Monogamy Without Monotony (reference) On the construction of monotony preserving taper curves (reference) Polygamy Was Better Than Monotony to My Grandfathers and Their Plural Wives (reference) The Power of Color: How It Can Reduce Fatigue, Relieve Monotony, Enhance Sexuality and More (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Break the Monotony (reference) Melancholy & Monotony [IMPORT] (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Poster from the "What the Navy is Doing" series, published by the Navy Recruiting Bureau, New York, circa 1919. Text below the pictures reads: "The above views were taken at one of our Naval Hospitals, which has adopted a method of keeping convalescent patients occupied and thus relieving the monotony of this inactive period. The men are taught to make various articles, such as rugs, leather purses and knotted belts. These articles are sold and the proceeds given to the men. Special attention is paid to those maimed during the war, who are being trained to care for themselves in spite of their injuries.". Credit: NAVY.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

Author	Quotation
Lord Byron	No more we meet in yonder bowers Absence has made me prone to roving; But older, firmer hearts than ours, Have found monotony in loving.
Ralph Waldo Emerson	Be true to your own act and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant to break the monotony of a decorous age.
Vance Packard	Rock 'n Roll is monotony tinged with hysteria.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Monotony" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.36% of the time. "Monotony" is used about 157 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	99.36%	156	25,144
Noun (common)	0.64%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	157	N/A

Hypenated Usage
	Ending with "monotony": anti-monotony.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "monotony"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		monotoni (monody, monotone), njëtrajtshmëri (equability, sameness, uniformity). (various references)

Arabic		‏ملل (bore, boredom, ennui, fatigue, ponderosity, tedium, tiredness, weariness), ‏رتابة (bureaucracy, flatness, humdrum, routine, sameness, tempo). (various references)

Bulgarian		скука (boredom, humdrum, insipidness, tedium, weariness), монотонност (humdrum, sameness), еднообразие (dead level, ding-dong, flatness, humdrum, jogtrot, sameness, tedium, uniformity). (various references)

Chinese		单调 (humdrum, monotone, monotonic, monotonous). (various references)

Czech		monotonie, monotónnost (flatness), jednotvárnost (baldness, tedium, uniformity). (various references)

Farsi		یکنواختی (Humdrum, Tedium, Uniformity), یک اهنگی , بی تنوعی , بی زیروبم . (various references)

Finnish		yksitoikkoisuus (sameness). (various references)

French		monotonie. (various references)

German		monotonie (monotone), eintönigkeit (monotonousness, sameness, uniformity). (various references)

Greek		μονοτονία (tediousness). (various references)

Hebrew		מו� וטו� יות (monotone), שעמום (bore, boredom, dreariness, dryness, dullness, humdrum, prosiness, tedium), ח�" �'ו� יות (humdrum, sameness, uniformity). (various references)

Hungarian		egyhangúság (flatness, humdrum, monotone, unanimity). (various references)

Italian		monotonia (dullness, humdrum, sameness). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		千編一律 (humdrum, lack of variety), 千篇一律 (humdrum, lack of variety), 平板 (flat board, lithography, slab), 単音 (monosyllable), 単調 (dullness, monotone), 一本気 (a one-track mind), 一律 (equality, evenness, uniformity). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		た�"お�" (monosyllable, short sound), た�"ちょう (bird-watching, dullness, Japanese crane, minor key, monotone, red-crested white crane), せ�"ぺ�"いちりつ (humdrum, lack of variety), いっぽ�"ぎ (a one-track mind), いちりつ (equality, evenness, uniformity), へいば�" (flat board, lithography, slab). (various references)

Manx		unsheean, dreeid (tedium). (various references)

Pig Latin		onotonymay

Portuguese		de um só tom. (various references)

Romanian		monotonie (drab, monotone, sameness), repetare plictisitoare, plictisealã (bore, boredom, botheration, ennui, flatness, heaviness, ponderosity, prolixity, spleen, tediousness, tedium, trouble, weariness). (various references)

Russian		однообразие (drab, drab existence, drabness, jogtrot, sameliness, sameness), монотонность (dead level, monotone, monotonicity). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		monotonija (monotone, tedium), jednoličnost, dosada (boredom, dullness, ennui, heretofore, hitherto, humdrum, idleness, tedium). (various references)

Spanish		monotonía (dreariness, monotone, sameness). (various references)

Swedish		enformighet (dullness, sameness, uniformity). (various references)

Turkish		monotonluk (dinginess, dryness, flatness, monotone, monotonous, sameness, squirrel cage, tameness, uniformity), yeknesaklık, tekdüzelik (flatness, rut, sameness, squirrel cage, uniformity). (various references)

Ukrainian		нудьга (bore, boredom, damp, distemper, dullness, ennui, insipidity, insipidness, mope, needle, tedium, yearn, yearning), монотонність (level, monody, monotone, singsong). (various references)

Vietnamese		trạng thái đều đều (monotonousness), sự bu�"n tẻ (humdrum, inanimation, monotonousness, stodginess), sự đơn điệu (monotonousness). (various references)

Welsh		unrhywiaeth (sameness), undonedd. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Misspellings
	"Monotony" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: momotony, Monobon, Monodon, monotany, monotiny, monotny, monotomy, monoton, monotory, monotropy, montagny, Montigny, notnotnot, Nowotny, omnopon. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "monotony" (pronounced munÄ"tunē)
5	-Ä" t u n ē	botany, neoteny, paleobotany.
4	-t u n ē	destiny, gluttony, litany, mutiny, scrutiny.
3	-u n ē	aborigine, accompany, agony, balcony, cacophony, colony, company, disharmony, ebony, Epiphany, felony, harmony, hegemony, hominy, homogeny, intercompany, intracompany, irony, larceny, mahogany, misogyny, ontogeny, Peony, phylogeny, polygyny, polyphony, progeny, Saxony, simony, Symphony, Tiffany, tyranny.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "m-n-n-o-o-o-t-y"
	-3 letters: moony, toyon.
	-4 letters: mono, mony, moon, moot, noon, onto, tony, toom, toon, toyo.
	-5 letters: mon, moo, mot, nom, noo, not, oot, tom, ton, too, toy, yom, yon.
	Words containing the letters "m-n-n-o-o-o-t-y"
	+4 letters: antimonopoly, monotonicity, monotonously.
	+5 letters: monocotyledon, monotonically, nonconformity.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.