Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Monogamy
/məˈnɑːɡəmi/noun
The practice of having only one spouse or partner at a time.
The Greek roots
μόνος
mónos
single, alone
γάμος
gámos
marriage, wedding
Literally: “single marriage”
The story of the word
When English took the word in the 1610s it meant marrying only once in a lifetime, so a widow who remarried had broken monogamy. The modern sense, one at a time, is the looser descendant of that stricter rule. Greek γάμος meant the wedding itself, the feast and the procession, more event than institution, which is why biologists can now speak of monogamy in geese without anyone objecting.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1610s
Same family
bigamypolygamymonologuemonopoly
In a sentence
The study tracked whether social monogamy in birds matched the genetic evidence, and often it did not.