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)

1. Tedium as a result of repetition or a lack of variety.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter II, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, 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^[1], 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.

   • 2023, “Angel Eyes”, performed by Spiritbox:

     Transform my death into a conduit
     This body separate from the fear of fear
     Inside a coping mechanism of monotony
     I will destroy the double vision that I was forced to leave

2. (mathematics) The property of a monotonic function.
3. 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
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 單調／单调 (zh) (dāndiào)

• 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