Monopoly

A viscous family game where the board is usually picked up by someone and used to whack someone's head.

Ruining friendships since the 1960's.

A game that makes children believe in a world of fantasy where battleships, thimbles, and hats are sentient and can own property. On the plus side, it raises the children to be investors and big-buisness types, which may not be on the plus side according to your views.

1) When a single institution becomes so powerful, that it has total control over a certain commodity, service or industry. This can't actually exist, because it can't ever be truly 100%. At least, not until we live in a futurisitic dystopia where the government/corporations/intelligent computers/big-headed aliens use mind control, rayguns and/or the Matrix to enforce control.

An example of an "Almost-monopoly" is Microsoft, who many people say have a monopoly of the Desktop PC Operating System market. This isn't true, as a small percentage of people use Macs or Linux PC's. Hell, you can even use FreeBSD as a desktop system.

2) A family game where people play shoes, irons and cowboy hats masquerading as CEO's vying for economic world domination. Based largely on luck, but skill/know-how can also be used, as is proved by a sad person I know who spent his young life getting good at the game so that, for once, he would be better than others at something. Usually, however, the game degenerates into petty fights and shouting matches.

A word used in place of sexual intercourse. Often used in social setting between 2 people in order to talk openly about sex without having anyone else know.

a term used to indicate a person wants to have sex with another person or to fool around . Indiscreet way of saying, hey you wanna have sex?

Where a single institution controls all of the supply for a good in a market.

However, a monopoly cannot last in the long run, unless a barrier to entry exists in the market.

Barriers to entry include:
- control of natural resources or inputs
- economies of scale
- technological superiority
- legal restrictions imposed by governments, including patents and copyrights.

A monopolist maximizes profit by producing a little less than the market equilibrium, driving up the price of the good. This creates a deadweight loss to society, (some mutually beneficial transactions are forgone), which is why a monopoly is discouraged or illegal in many parts of the world.