Monotony is dull sameness that never varies. The monotony of the work, break the monotony, unrelieved monotony.
Break the monotony is the standard phrase, and it implies the sameness is the problem rather than the work itself. The Greek means one tone, from music, where a monotone is a single unchanging pitch.
1nounmonotonyDull sameness that never varies.
“To escape the monotony of office life, he took up rock climbing.”
monotony is a dullness.
Greek monotonia means sameness of tone, from monos, single, plus tonos, tone.
Ancient Greek
μονοτονία — sameness of tone, monotony
Latin
monotonia
French
monotonie
English, today
monotony
From French monotonie, from Latin monotonia, from Ancient Greek μονοτονία (“sameness of tone, monotony”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA