Monoamorous

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Experiencing romantic or sexual attraction exclusively toward people of a single gender
2. Attracted romantically or sexually to individuals of only one sex or gender identity
3. Capable of romantic or sexual feeling directed toward a single gender rather than multiple genders

Etymology: "Monoamorous" is a modern coinage, first attested in 1992, and it is built from two parts. The first is "monoamory," the practice or condition of having only one romantic partner at a time, which is itself a formation from the Greek prefix "mono-" meaning "single" and the Latin-derived "amor," meaning "love." The second part is the English suffix "-ous," which turns a noun into an adjective meaning "characterised by" or "given to," as in "famous" or "joyous." The word was probably modelled on "polyamorous," the older term for openly having more than one romantic relationship at once. Coined by analogy, it set the one-partner idea against the many-partner one, using the same prefix in its opposite form. Because the pairing is so neat, the new term quickly became the natural counterpart to the older one.