monopoly
noun
Helen M. LyndBarbara A. Leitch
Did you know?
You're probably familiar with the word monopoly, but you may not recognize its conceptual and linguistic relative, the much rarer oligopsony. Both monopoly and oligopsony are ultimately from Greek, although monopoly passed through Latin before being adopted into English. Monopoly comes from the Greek prefix mono-, which means "one," and pōlein, "to sell." Oligopsony derives from the combining form olig-, meaning "few," and the Greek noun opsōnia—"the purchase of victuals"—which is ultimately from the combination of opson, "food," and ōneisthai, "to buy." It makes sense, then, that oligopsony refers to a buyer's market in which the seller is subjected to the potential demands of a limited pool of buyers. Another related word is monopsony, used for a more extreme oligopsony in which there is only a single buyer.
Examples of monopoly in a Sentence
Charles Selle, Chicago Tribune, 9 June 2025
The old toolkit — platform monopolies, launch windows, press rollouts — hasn’t disappeared.
—Remy Blumenfeld, HollywoodReporter, 4 June 2025
Section 2 would eliminate these lower-cost options, propping up California’s traditional legal monopoly and limiting competition at the expense of access.
—Chris Czaplak, San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 June 2025
In 2024, the US Department of Justice successfully showed that Google has illegally maintained a search monopoly.
—Ryan Whitwam, ArsTechnica, 2 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for monopoly
Cite this Entry
“Monopoly.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monopoly. Accessed 3 Jul. 2025.
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