monosexual

monosexual — adjective

  • monosexualpositive
  • more monosexualcomparative
  • most monosexualsuperlative

1. feeling romantic or sexual attraction to people of only one gender, in contrast

1.adjectiveC2
Definition

feeling romantic or sexual attraction to people of only one gender, in contrast with being bisexual or pansexual.

Example

At the campus pride workshop, Jiwoo asked the students whether they identified as monosexual.

identify as monosexual — discourse framing

Roya argued that monosexual people sometimes assume bisexuality is just a phase.

monosexual + people — common adjective + noun pattern

Common collocations
  • monosexual people
  • monosexual identity
  • monosexual orientation
Synonyms
Antonyms
  • bisexual

    attraction to two or more genders

  • pansexual

    attraction regardless of gender

  • plurisexual

    umbrella term covering attraction to multiple genders

Grammar Patterns

be + monosexual

Usage Note

Mainly used in sexology, gender studies, and LGBTQ+ community discussions; rarely heard in everyday speech. Usually contrasted explicitly with 'bisexual', 'pansexual', or 'plurisexual'.

Common Mistakes

He is a monosexual.
He is monosexual.
used as an adjective, not normally as a count noun in formal writing.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

These four terms describe sexual orientation along different axes. 'Monosexual' is the umbrella label for attraction to only one gender, and it groups together 'heterosexual' (attraction to a different gender) and 'homosexual' (attraction to the same gender). 'Bisexual' sits on the opposite side, naming attraction to two or more genders. The word 'monosexual' usually appears in gender-studies writing where the speaker wants to contrast single-gender orientations with bisexual or pansexual ones — for example, 'Heterosexual and homosexual identities are both monosexual, in contrast with bisexual identities, which involve more than one gender.'

monosexual ↗heterosexual ↗homosexual ↗bisexual ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • monosexual orientation
  • monosexual identity

Etymology

GreekEnglish

Built from Greek 'monos' meaning 'single, only' plus the modern English 'sexual'. The word first appeared in late 20th-century sexology writing, coined to fill a gap: English already had 'bisexual' and 'homosexual', but no single label for the broader idea of being attracted to just one gender. It became common in LGBTQ+ community discussion from the 1990s onward, especially in arguments about bisexual erasure.