monosyllable

as in expression
a lexical item that has only one syllable He answered all their questions with monosyllables like "yes" and "no."

Related Words

Relevance

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of monosyllable And so, while the two talked at and around Andy Warhol and to each other, Warhol sat with his tiny dachshund, Archie Bunker, in his lap and snapped the reporters’ pictures with his new Polaroid camera, answering direct questions with shrugs or vague monosyllables. Stephen Birmingham, Town & Country, 10 Aug. 2023 Hearing this jab of monosyllables is like being poked in the eye. Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 4 Aug. 2023 His surprise was expressed in a monosyllable. Roger Robinson, Outside Online, 21 Dec. 2021 But where the two Stegosaurus brothers speak in Jurassic monosyllables, Stegothesaurus has the gift of a bountiful vocabulary. Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, 22 June 2018 The result is an idiom of great spareness and simplicity: The words are short, mostly monosyllables. Gregory Hays, New York Times, 5 Dec. 2017 Still on the ground, Huete answers with monosyllables before using a cell phone to call his sister, who arrived at the scene soon after … James Hohmann, Washington Post, 26 May 2017 The title of Frantz is something else again, neither a piece of hand-holding nor an act of mild subversion, but a monosyllable with a gift for multitasking—and an index of the impacted richness that the film displays for roughly an hour. Leo Robson, Newsweek, 4 May 2017 Original writer Derek Kolstad and director Chad Stahelski have returned for the sequel, alongside the taciturn Reeves, who brews up more of his Wickian magic while speaking infrequently and mostly in monosyllables. Katie Walsh, The Mercury News, 9 Feb. 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for monosyllable
Noun
  • Scientists speculate that this could be an expression of mourning or an instinctual effort to understand the loss.
    Adeola Adeosun, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Sep. 2025
  • Scorn is a salve for her—an enjoyable expression of her fastidious nature and a coping strategy.
    Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 15 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • Yet the sudden ubiquity of this phrase also reveals the extraordinary pressure the young-adult generation feels to decipher a puzzle-like economy that barely rewards their best efforts.
    Dave Smith, Fortune, 11 Sep. 2025
  • The phrases were used across a range of merchandise like a Tiger Blood energy drink, a biographical comic book and other items, per the outlet.
    Jordana Comiter, PEOPLE, 11 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • Iniki is the Hawaiian word for sharp and piercing wind.
    Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA Today, 11 Sep. 2025
  • Colleagues described a popular chaplain with nicknames for the tiny patients and soothing words for their bleary-eyed parents.
    Hannah Allam, ProPublica, 10 Sep. 2025
Noun
  • In a multistage process of evolution, words describing diverse body parts had changed into morphemes referring to different zones and fused with content words to yield meaning.
    Anvita Abbi, Scientific American, 16 May 2023
  • The slips of paper contained the morphemes, which are the building blocks for the entire language.
    Ian Austen, BostonGlobe.com, 22 Apr. 2023

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Monosyllable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/monosyllable. Accessed 17 Sep. 2025.

More from Merriam-Webster on monosyllable

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!