monopod
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: From mono- + -pod.
Base: mono
Inflected forms:
form: monopods
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: A portable stand with one leg, used to support a camera or telescope.
pos: noun
examples: Another neat device is a kind of monopod (if we may coin a word), which is adjusted against the hub of the wheel by means of a Y-top, and has adjustable extension to reach to the ground. This sliding brass foot telescopes and shuts up into a length of only about sixteen inches, making a very effective means of turning the bicycle into a rigid camera stand.
gloss: Someone or something that has only one foot or foot-like projection; especially, a mythological dwarf-like creature with a single, large foot extending from a leg centred in the middle of its body.
pos: noun
examples: Vnto what end like wiſe ſhould I ſpeak of thoſe blind Andabates that fight without eyes, or of thoſe great eared people the Faneſii, whoſe ears ſhadowed and couered their whole body? or of the Monopods, which in like manner ſhadow their whole body with one foote?
Hence their ſacred Tables, ſome placed before the Images of their Gods in their Temples (as mention’d. Iſai. 65. 11. Ezek. 23. 41) and ſome ſet up for Libations, and other Idolatrous Uſes, in their Houſes: ſome call’d Tripods, with three Feet, ſome Tetrapods, with four; and ſome Monopods with one, in Manner of a Pillar:[…].
The next order of walkers amongst apodous larvæ are those that move by means of fleshy tuberculiform or pediform prominences,—which last resemble the spurious legs of the caterpillars of most Lepidoptera. Some, a kind of monopods, have only one of such prominences, which being always fixed almost under the head, may serve, in some degree, the purpose of an unguiform mandible.
Very many fragments of vases, of various dimensions, were also found: some of them adorned in tiles, and some in circles; a part in intaglio, and a part in relief; all of terra cotta. Three monopods, of a single stone, are still uninjured, and the very ruins, under which they formerly lay for so many ages, have preserved them.
Here the monopod hero, Santa Anna, fights cocks, and waits the moving of the waters in Mexico.
But I do find, as I thought I should, the curious and valuable chapter (De Civitate Dei, Lib. XVI., Cap. 8), in which he discusses the question of Sciapods, Monopods, Monoculi, Androgynæ, and other monsters, and concludes, philosophically enough, that one is not bound to believe that they exist, and if they do exist, it is not proven that they are men.
Indeed, we are much indebted to this straightforward and simpleminded sailor, for his unadorned narrative, which forms such a favourable contrast to the travellers’ tales of later voyagers, who on some small substratum of truth raised such enormous fictions as the monopods, the pigmies and cranes, the acephali, and other prodigies.
The consequence was that the state in which the birds were sent to market was supposed to be their natural condition, and the Puffin was popularly believed to be a “monopod” (one-footed bird).
Whether Klale, in our frantic scrambles, became a biped, gesticulating and clutching the air with two hoofed arms,—or whether a monopod, alighted on his nose and lifting on high a quintette of terminations, four legs and a tail,—still Klale and I remained inseparable.
Nay; ’tis but the cockle’s foot; a monopod he is: this is all the foot he has.
Perhaps this zoologic fact may have given rise to the queer human monstrosities that may be seen finely drawn in the Nuremberg Chronicle—men with only one leg and one foot, but that foot large enough for any of the gianthood. [See image.] A most useful foot it was too, for the owner could hop along faster than our ordinary bipedal man could run; and if the heat of the sun were very oppressive, the contented monopod had nothing to do but to roll over on his back and hold up his foot as a parasol.
There is a one-legged crossing-sweeper at the bottom of St. James’s-street who does his work with considerable agility, and labours hard at it, but no one ever thinks of taking a stall at Sam’s library to see him do it. Why should they rush to see another monopod skipping on the boards of the opera?
It does not appear that tables supported on a single pillar were known at Rome until about B.C. 186, when Cn. M. Vulso brought to Rome from Asia among the spoils bed-couches of bronze, side-boards (or cupboards or cabinets) for holding plate and like valuables, and monopods.
Here the exploring party left their boat and proceeded on foot across a sandy belt of land, with a chain of fresh-water ponds with muddy spaces between them, where the curlew and the whimbrel, the plover and the snipe, found ample feeding-ground, plunging their beaks into the congenial ooze, and the herons, those gloomy monopods, wait in patience the approach of the scaly prey.
Dr. Green exhibited a drawing of the fœtus, which he had seen in the summer, and gave the following account of the case: The woman, a prostitute, twenty-four years of age, primipara (or said to be so), sustained a severe fall when six weeks pregnant. When seven months pregnant she again fell—on the pavement. She continued her vocation until within five days of labor, which was normal in every respect, resulting in the fœtus, a drawing of which was shown to the Society. It was an example of Förster’s monopod (the left leg was wanting), and peropod (as wanting part of the right leg), or, in sum, a pero-monopod.
‘[…]I had not escaped unwounded from the fight, one of my legs being severely fractured and covered with blood.[’][…]‘And that was the way,’ concluded the lieutenant as he took his candle and stumped off to bed, ‘that I became a “monopod.” ’
My only objection to the New Woman is that she is too usually old. If she chooses to wear a divided skirt or “knicks,” what is that to me? She has as much right to kick or “bike” as I. After all she is a biped, not a monopod.
There was a volume on the rarities of India which seemed to have been borrowed from the frescoes at Persepolis; but the writer professed to have some personal knowledge of the Feathered Folk and Monopods, and men with eyes in their breasts:[…]
In the garden, a microcephalic cyclops reeled under a blizzard of blows as the four-armed boxer he was trying to fight hopped about nimbly on a single leg. He hadn’t lost a limb, but was a yōkai whose legs fused into a single muscular column. The monopod ended the bout by executing a devastating flying kick, which laid the other bruiser out in the bloody snow.
Synonyms: unipod
Related words: bipod
selfie stick
tripod
Translations: