monopoly

What it means

1. 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.

   Ciudadanos is keen on fighting monopolies and on vigorous Scandinavian-style labour reforms to help the unemployed retrain and find jobs.

   2018 February 10, “Spain’s centrist Ciudadanos are on the march”, in The Economist, London: Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 May 2018

   5 more examples

   The sale of the leaves and roots was a Government monopoly, and from it the Kings of Kôr derived a large proportion of their private revenue.

   1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

   In 1918 a Chinese company was given a monopoly to run a service between Victoria and the districts of Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po. Five years later this monopoly was transferred to the Hong Kong and Yaumati Ferry Company, together with the right to run a service to Yau Ma Tei.

   1962, G. B. Endacott, A. Hinton, “Public Works and Transport”, in Fragrant Harbour: A Short History of Hong Kong, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, published 1977, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 122

   It has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits.

   2013 August 10, “Can China clean up fast enough?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848, archived from the original on 12 Feb 2014

   Exactly! You can’t reduce the competition when nobody is competing! You could not be describing a monopoly more clearly if you were wearing a metal top hat while driving a metal car after winning second prize in a beauty contest!

   2014 June 1, “Net Neutrality”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 1, episode 5, John Oliver (actor), via HBO

   On building companies, [Sam] Altman frequently channeled [Peter] Thiel’s “monopoly” strategy, the belief that all founders should “aim for monopoly” to create a successful business.

   2025, Karen Hao, Empire of AI, New York City: Penguin Press, →ISBN

   Antonyms: monopsony, polypoly

2. An exclusive control over the trade or production of a commodity or service through exclusive possession.

   A land monopoly renders its holder(s) nearly almighty in an agricultural society.

   2 more examples

   Монополисти́ческое облада́ние важне́йшими исто́чниками сыры́х материа́лов стра́шно увели́чило власть кру́пного капита́ла и обостри́ло противоре́чие ме́жду картелли́рованной и некартелли́рованной промы́шленностью.

   Vladimir Lenin

   1917 [1916], Владимир Ленин [Vladimir Lenin], Империализм, как высшая стадия капитализма (В. И. Ленин: Полное собрание сочинений; 27), published 1969, page 421; English translation from Yuri Sdobnikov, transl., Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (V. I. Lenin: Collected Works; 22), translation of original in Russian, 1964, page 299

   My great grandfather had the monopoly of eggs in all of China and my grandmother was super rich living in a mansion when the cultural revolution happened and communism took everything away.

   2020 January 31, Kay Tye, Twitter (tweet), archived from the original on 01 Feb 2020, deleted

3. The privilege granting the exclusive right to exert such control.

   Granting monopolies in concession constitutes a market-conform alternative to taxation for the state, while the crown sometimes bestowed a monopoly as an outrageous gift.

In a sentence

The sale of the leaves and roots was a Government monopoly, and from it the Kings of Kôr derived a large proportion of their private revenue.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

Where it comes from

1. Ancient Greekμονοπώλιον“a right of exclusive sale”
2. Latinmonopōlium
3. Englishmonopoly

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.