monosyllabismn.
/ˌmɒnə(ʊ)ˈsɪləbɪz(ə)m/, U.S. /ˌmɑnəˈsɪləˌbɪzm/ 1. The property or fact of being either wholly or predominantly monosyllabic; the use of monosyllables. Also: an instance of this.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > speech > taciturnity or reticence > [noun] > brevity or sparingness of speech
sparingness1617
pauciloquy1623
breviloquence1656
curtness1762
monosyllabism1804
society > leisure > the arts > literature > style of language or writing > conciseness > [noun] > monosyllabism or monosyllabizing
monosyllabism1804
monosyllabizing1857
1804 W. Mitford Inq. Princ. Harmony Lang. (ed. 2) 414 In the spirited and easy flow of that line thus, its monosyllabism is apt to escape the ear's notice.
1824 New Monthly Mag. 12 198/2 The rounded and sonorous Italian enunciation does not admit of being despatched in the snip-snap articulation compatible with the monosyllabism of our own language.
1885 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 774/2 Which..brought back so considerable a part of the vocabulary to monosyllabism.
1928 O. Jespersen (title) Monosyllabism in English.
1957 Ethics 67 197/2 Every action is good, every belief is true... The only trouble with this utter monosyllabism is [etc.].
2000 Ottawa Citizen (Nexis) 17 Apr. a15 Teachers..have reverted to monosyllabism because of their missed chance to deliver the knockout blow during the strike.
2. Linguistics. The property of a language of having only or predominantly words of one syllable.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > [noun] > language characterized by grammar or morphology > monosyllabism or polysyllabism
monosyllabism1846
polysyllabism1859
1846 J. E. Worcester Universal Dict. Eng. Lang. Monosyllabism, a predominance of monosyllables.
1860 F. W. Farrar Ess. Origin Lang. 183 It should be observed that triliteralism is not necessarily incompatible with monosyllabism.
1896 A. H. Keane Ethnol. 208 Monosyllabism is thus shown to be, not the first but the last stage in the evolution of human speech.
1926 Language 2 133 We find the same drift at work from analysis to synthesis, from monosyllabism to polysyllabism.
1950 Pacific Affairs 23 98 The difficulty of learning Chinese lies..in its monosyllabism and its almost total lack of derivations and inflections.
1961 S.-Y. Ch'ên Chinese Lit. i. 12 This preponderant monosyllabism of archaic Chinese could not help but produce an embarrassing result—the large numbers of homonyms.
1999 H. Saussy in L. H. Liu Tokens of Exchange i. 111 Other languages have moved on from monosyllabism or, like English, back toward it.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1804