Word
mono
US/ˈmoʊnoʊ/
UK/mˈɒnəʊ/
Definition
n. an illness that makes you feel very tired and gives you a sore throat for a long time. It is common among teenagers and young adults and spreads through saliva.
n. an infectious disease caused by the Epstein-Barr virus, characterised by extreme fatigue, fever, and swollen lymph nodes. Informal in register; the full medical term is infectious mononucleosis.
Examples
“He missed two weeks of school because he had mono.”
“After feeling exhausted for a month, the student went to the clinic and tested positive for mono.”
“While mono is rarely dangerous for healthy individuals, the resulting fatigue can linger for months, significantly impacting a student's academic performance and social life during the recovery period.”
Examples
simple
“He missed two weeks of school because he had mono.”
contextual
“After feeling exhausted for a month, the student went to the clinic and tested positive for mono.”
complex
“While mono is rarely dangerous for healthy individuals, the resulting fatigue can linger for months, significantly impacting a student's academic performance and social life during the recovery period.”
Usage
Typically used without an article ('he has mono') or with the definite article in specific contexts ('the mono she caught').
Pitfall
He has a mono
He has mono
Unlike 'a cold' or 'a headache', mono is treated as an uncountable disease name and does not take an indefinite article.
Etymology
From Yokutsan and Miwok –chi, a suffix that wandered freely across tribal names until it attached itself to the group later recorded as Mono; the neighbouring Monache retain the same element, suggesting a shared linguistic way-marker rather than a self-chosen label.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/mono