monophonicadj.

1828 P. Du Ponceau Let. 7 July in Chinese Syst. Writing (1838) 114 From a similar selection, says M. Remusat, the Coreans have made a monophonic alphabet of nine vowels and fifteen consonants, with which they can write their language.

1852 B. S. Saroni tr. A. B. Marx Theory & Pract. Mus. Composition ii. i. 72 The more we extend our monophonic tone-chains, the more baseless must they appear.

1902 C. B. Cady Music-education i. xiii. 79 Two voiced polyphony is the next step..time will eventually be saved in the case of the average student, if the essential work of this monophonic outline is first thoroughly mastered.

1940 C. Sachs Hist. Musical Instrum. (1942) 448 The most important monophonic instruments are Maurice Martenot's Ondes musicales (1928) [etc.].

1976 T. O'Brien Northern Lights ii. 185 The sound was monophonic, a single repetitive sobbing sound without dimension.

1996 C. Jenkins in P. Trynka Rock Hardware 53/2 These early synthesizers were generally monophonic: capable of playing one note at a time.

1958 Newsweek 13 Oct. 102/2 Bending an ear to a single-track (monophonic, to hi-fi devotees) record is ‘like listening to a concert through a crack in the door’.

1974 Nature 13 Dec. 535/1 Monophonic reproduction gave no explicit directional information, even when reproduced from more than one loudspeaker.

1987 Independent 11 July 8/3 Audiophiles will recall the record industry's long flirtation with ‘stereoization’ of old monophonic masters.