monopoly.

1. Exclusive supply or market control by one seller, often without close substitutes or effective competitors.

2. Exclusive possession, access or control that leaves others unable to share in it.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• natural monopoly
• monopoly power

On the page

The inquiry assessed whether network costs created a natural monopoly.

A large market share did not by itself settle whether the firm possessed monopoly power.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Singular monopoly; plural monopolies. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: financial analysis, risk evaluation, comparison, explanation. Disciplines: economics, finance, business. Commonness: moderately common.