- monopolize
- monopolize, engross, absorb, consume mean to take up completely.Monopolize, the general term, means to pos-sess or control exclusively{
monopolize the year's crop of cotton
}{a child should not be allowed to monopolize the attention of his family
}{every railroad monopolizes, in a popular sense, the trade of some area— Justice Holmes
}{the party in power at Washington can organize the two houses of the Congress . . . but it cannot monopolize the business of lawmaking— Holcombe
}{never attempted to monopolize or even dominate the discussion— J. G. Gray
}Occasionally engross implies getting a physical control of (as by purchase of the available supply){the process of engrossing the land which attended the ascent to power of the aristocracy— Becker
}and this notion may persist in extended use{the sun engrossed the east, the day controlled the world— Emily Dickinson
}but more often the verb takes an immaterial object and implies a preoccupying{political theory has long engrossed the Indian mind— Poleman
}{the works manager who ... is engrossed chiefly with the engineering problem of securing maximum output with minimum input— Hurff
}Absorb is frequently interchangeable with engross, but it is less often predicated of persons as conscious agents and more often of things that have an inherent capacity for monopolization{manual occupations do not engage the mind sufficiently .... But composition, especially of verse, absorbs it wholly— Cowper
}{it is arithmetically impossible for every child to absorb the whole time of an adult tutor— Russell
}Consume comes into comparison with engross and absorb chiefly in an extended sense of each, implying monopolization of one's time, attention, or interest{Flané is determined that men and their convictions shall be given a true and proper evaluation. He is consumed with the idea of justice— Boyle
}{the consuming anxiety of the ride still held him though the reason for it was gone— Wheelwright
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
