monotonic
Americanadjective
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of, relating to, or uttered in a monotone.
a monotonic delivery of a lecture.
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Mathematics.
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(of a function or sequence) either consistently increasing in value and never decreasing, or consistently decreasing in value and never increasing.
A monotonic sequence can either converge or diverge, but it can never oscillate.
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(of an ordered system of sets) consisting of sets such that each set contains the preceding set or such that each set is contained in the preceding set.
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Usage
What does monotonic mean? Monotonic describes something of, related to, or said in a monotone, as in Minh fell asleep in history because of the professor’s monotonic voice.When something sounds monotonic, its sound is a single pitch or tone, with changes, harmony, or background tones. Sometimes, parts of a song or speech will be purposely delivered monotonically, but usually something that is monotonic is considered boring.In mathematics, monotonic describes a function or a portion of a function that is always increasing or decreasing. For example, a parabolic function plotted on a chart will always have a monotonic decreasing portion that decreases to zero, a point at 0,0, and a monotonic increasing portion rising up.Example: His monotonic speech was so dull it put me to sleep in the first 10 minutes.
Other Word Forms
- monotonically adverb
Etymology
Origin of monotonic
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The researchers found the association to be “nearly monotonic.”
From Seattle Times
If he were to be believed, his wife, three adult kids and their spouses were monotonic mumblers.
From Washington Post
They may speak less and, when they do, adopt a flat, monotonic tone.
From Time
Gupta embeds those monotonic relationships in sprawling databases called interpolated lookup tables.
From Science Magazine
The future will see a monotonic increase in the ambitions that loose-knit groups can achieve.
From The Guardian
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
