as in expression
a lexical item that has only one syllable
He answered all their questions with monosyllables like "yes" and "no."
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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
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
-
Call it artistic expression, or maybe just a Knicks fan too busy jumping for joy to cut the outtakes.—
Jared Weiss,
New York Times,
8 June 2026
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The regulation of our environment; the presence of chemicals both intentionally and unwittingly in our food, water, air, and land; the ecological fate of all living creatures, and of the earth itself—all these dilemmas and conundrums find urgent expression in Carson’s work.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
8 June 2026
Noun
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The phrase is everywhere in international relations circles, but the explanation is almost nowhere.—
Andrew Latham,
The Conversation,
4 June 2026
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In the Obama Presidential Center Museum, the story of America is that of a nation striving to become a more perfect union, a phrase Obama returned to often in his speeches.—
Tamara Keith,
NPR,
4 June 2026
Noun
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The game’s objective is to group words or objects into four groups of four based on commonalities within each group as quickly as possible.—
Mark Cooper,
New York Times,
8 June 2026
-
Already, attention must be paid, and italics must be used, because eyepatch Armand is, to use his favorite word, fascinating.—
Rebecca Alter,
Vulture,
8 June 2026
Noun
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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
Cite this Entry
“Monosyllable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/monosyllable. Accessed 9 Jun. 2026.
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