Meanings
plural monadnocks
- A hill or mountain standing isolated above a predominantly flat plain.
Eastward from the White Mountains, the open sea of the upland country comes right to the monadnock shore, with hardly an outlying island; southward the upland is covered for miles by an archipelago of monadnock groups and peaks.
1901, Philip Emerson, “Notes on the New England Upland about the White Mountains”, in Appalachia, volume IX, page 57Synonyms: inselberg
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA hill or mountain standing isolated above a predominantly flat plain.
Origin
From the name of Mount Monadnock in New England, which derives from an Abenaki word, perhaps menonadenak, menonadenek (“smooth mountain”) or menadenak, menadenek (“isolated mountain”), from aden (“mountain”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
monadnock. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/monadnock
“monadnock.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/monadnock. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “monadnock,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/monadnock.
Source: monadnock on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.