monopoly
noun
Helen M. Lynd Barbara 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.
Example Sentences
Abha Bhattarai, Anchorage Daily News, 3 Sep. 2022 Rival consultants argue that since Scott became NRSC chair, OnMessage has had a near monopoly over NRSC contracts. Daniel Strauss, The New Republic, 31 Aug. 2022 After the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. government will make its largest-ever investment in slowing climate change and use its market heft, through Medicare, to challenge the monopoly-pricing power of the big drug companies. John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 30 Aug. 2022 That arrangement, industry experts and agriculture economists say, creates a monopoly-like environment, which can work to keep prices higher. Abha Bhattarai, Washington Post, 27 Aug. 2022 Right-to-repair advocates claim John Deere is a big tech monopoly using digital locks to make farmers go through an authorized dealer or agent in order to fix their equipment. Clarisa Diaz, Quartz, 25 Aug. 2022 To some competitors, the patent seemed to give the company a monopoly on a compound that humans have used for thousands of years. Wired, 28 July 2022 Andrei Sakharov, a dissident who was elected to the Supreme Soviet after Gorbachev released him from internal exile, argued against the monopoly of the Communist Party. Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 31 Aug. 2022 These Empowerment Scholarship Accounts will truly bust the government education monopoly. Steve Forbes, Forbes, 1 July 2022 See More Word History
Latin monopolium, from Greek monopōlion, from mon- + pōlein to sell
1534, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Phrases Containing monopoly
Kids Definition
monopoly
noun
Legal Definition
monopoly
noun