monopod

Camera and telephoto lens mounted on monopod (sense 1)

Folded monopod (sense 1)

Illustration of a monopod (sense 2) from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

From mono- +‎ -pod.

monopod (plural monopods)

1. A portable stand with one leg, used to support a camera or telescope.
   • 1886 September 26, “Photography for Wheelmen”, in Charles F[rederick] Chandler, Arthur H Elliott, editors, Anthony’s Photographic Bulletin, volume XVI, number 18, New York, N.Y.: E. & H. T. Anthony & Co., , page 554:

     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.

2. 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.

   Synonym: uniped

   Alternative form: monoped

   • 1586, Lodowicke Lloid, “Of the maners of sundrie people, and of their strange life”, in The Pilgrimage of Princes, London: Iohn Wolfe, folios 77, verso – 78, recto:

     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?

   • 1751, Benjamin Holloway, Originals Physical and Theological &c., volume II, pages 170–171:

     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: […].

   • 1817, William Kirby, William Spence, “Motions of Insects. (Larva and Pupa.)”, in An Introduction to Entomology: or Elements of the Natural History of Insects: with Plates, volume II, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, , page 277:

     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.

   • 1853, E. E. S., “Dr. Vassallo on Maltese Antiquities. Dei Monumenti Antichi nel Gruppo di Malta Cenni Storici del Dr. Cesare Vassallo. Periodo Fenicio ed Egizio. Valletta: 1851.”, in Journal of the American Oriental Society, third volume, New York, N.Y.: for the Society by George P. Putnam & Co. , page 234:

     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.

   • 1857, Isaac F Holton, “Cartagena. ”, in New Granada: Twenty Months in the Andes, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, , page 47:

     Here the monopod hero, Santa Anna, fights cocks, and waits the moving of the waters in Mexico.

   • 1858 December 19, Charles Kingsley, “1858. Aged 39.”, in , editor, Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of His Life, 2nd edition, volume II, London: Henry S. King & Co., published 1877, page 65:

     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.

   • 1861, J[ohn] G[eorge] Wood, “Simíadæ, or Apes”, in The Illustrated Natural History, class Mammalia, London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, . New York: , page 16:

     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.

   • 1862, C[harles] A[lexander] Johns, “The Manx Shearwater. Puffínus Anglorum.”, in British Birds in Their Haunts, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, page 600:

     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).

   • 1863, Theodore Winthrop, “The Canoe and the Saddle. Forests of the Cascades.”, in The Canoe and the Saddle, Adventures Among the Northwestern Rivers and Forests; and Isthmiana, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, page 100:

     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.

   • 1864, Philip Henry Gosse, “A Year at the Shore. IV.—April.”, in Norman Macleod, editor, Good Words for 1864, London: Publishing Office, , page 353:

     Nay; ’tis but the cockle’s foot; a monopod he is: this is all the foot he has.

   • 1864, J[ohn] G[eorge] Wood, “Molluscs”, in Our Garden Friends and Foes, London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, and  New York, page 106:

     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.

   • 1865 January 7, the Luncher at the Pub, “Town Talk”, in Fun, volume VII, page 162:

     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?

   • 1869, “Introduction”, in Patents for Inventions. Abridgments of Specifications Relating to Furniture and Upholstery. A.D. 1620-1866., London: George E Eyre and William Spottiswoode, , page xxii:

     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.

   • 1870 November, “Notices of New Books. ‘Travels of a Naturalist in Japan and Manchuria.’ By Arthur Adams, .”, in Edward Newman, editor, The Zoologist: A Popular Miscellany of Natural History, second series, volume the fifth (or twenty-eighth from the commencement), London: John Van Voorst, , page 2352:

     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.

   • 1884 January 17, C W. Swan, “Proceedings of the Obstetrical Society of Boston. Malformed Fœtus.”, in George B Shattuck, Abner Post, editors, The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, volume CX, number 3, Boston, Mass.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company; Cambridge: The Riverside Press, pages 61–62:

     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.

   • , S Whitchurch Sadler, “A Conjunction with Taurus”, in The African Cruiser. A Midshipman’s Adventures on the West Coast., London: Griffith & Farran ; New York, N.Y.: E. P. Dutton & Co., pages 160–161:

     ‘[…] 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.” ’

   • 1895 April 7, Uncle Benjamin, “The New Woman”, in G[eorge] W[illiam] Foote, J[oseph] M[azzini] Wheeler, editors, The Freethinker, volume XV, number 14, page 213:

     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.

   • 1897 April, Charles Elton, “An Old Greek Romance”, in The Cornhill Magazine, new series, volume II, number 10, London: Smith, Elder, & Co.,  , page 497:

     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: […]

   • 2017 October 24, Kim Newman, Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters, Titan Books, →ISBN:

     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.

• unipod

• bipod
• selfie stick
• tripod

• Monopod on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Monopod (creature) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Borrowed from French monopode.

monopod m or n (feminine singular monopodă, masculine plural monopozi, feminine and neuter plural monopode)

1. monopod