Unless you’re a linguist or a computer scientist, the chances of you using the word “monosemy” in conversation are slim, but it’s still an interesting concept to understand. In linguistics, monosemy is when a word or a part of a word has only one meaning. In modern English, we use metaphor, slang, and jargon, so the chances of a word today truly having only one meaning are very slim. However, ancient languages were very often monosemous, which gives us the building blocks of modern languages.