Etymology

monopoly

M3O1N1O1P3O1L1Y4

Today it means: 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. Full definition →

Latin monopōlium ← Ancient Greek μονοπώλιον
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

monopoly · noun1

  1. Ancient Greek · derived fromμονοπώλιον“a right of exclusive sale”
  2. Latin · derived frommonopōlium
  3. English todaymonopoly

From Latin monopōlium, from Ancient Greek μονοπώλιον (monopṓlion, “a right of exclusive sale”), from μόνος (mónos, “sole”) + πωλέω (pōléō, “to barter, sell”). By surface analysis, mono- + -poly.

Monopoly · proper noun2

See monopoly.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.