noun

• (also attributively) A large, single block of stone which is a natural feature; or a block of stone or other similar material used in architecture and sculpture, especially one carved into a monument in ancient times.
  "Tomb of Napoleon I. [...] Twelve colossal statues, by [James] Pradier, representing as many victories, stand against the pilasters, facing the tomb, consisting of an immense monolith of porphyry, weighing 135,000 lbs., and brought from Lake Onega in Finland at a cost of 140,000fr."
• (also attributively and figurative) Anything massive, uniform, and unmovable, especially a towering and impersonal cultural, political, or social organization or structure.
  "It was the setting up of generalizations of the first kind in [Charles J.] Fillmore (1966a, b) and (1968a) that awarded case grammar the role of being, besides abstract syntax, the second crack in the transformational monolith of the late sixties."
• (chemistry) A substrate having many tiny channels that is cast as a single piece, which is used as a stationary phase for chromatography, as a catalytic surface, etc.
  "The conference chairman, Alois Jungbauer, Ph.D., professor at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna, defined a monolith as a continuous stationary-phase cast as a homogeneous column in a single piece. Monoliths are further characterized by a highly interconnected network of channels, most with sizes ranging from 1 to 5 µm. The adsorptive surface is directly accessible to solutes as they pass through the column."
• (British, horticulture) A dead tree whose height and size have been reduced by breaking off or cutting its branches.
  "[page 98] If a stub is to be retained, either for the reasons stated above, or when a tree is to be reduced to a "monolith" [...], unconventional methods of cutting or fracturing (not recommended in BS 3998) may be employed, [...] [page 147] Even dead standing or fallen trees are important, and so owners should be encouraged to be untidy-minded and to leave monoliths or fallen dead wood in situ."

verb

• (transitive) To create (something) as, or convert (one or more things) into, a monolith.
  "[Fatema] Mernissi constructs a single dominant view of sexuality among Muslims while she purports to be doing sociology or anthropology. [...] [I]s it Mernissi's contention that only Islam is monolithed in stone by an overarching patriarchy?"
• (transitive) To create (something) as, or convert (one or more things) into, a monolith.
  "It should be noted that the parapets, also monolithing with the decking slab, contribute an important share to the effective resistance of the work."
• (transitive) To create (something) as, or convert (one or more things) into, a monolith.
  "Residents who use the park regularly for sports say they are gobsmacked that the council consider cutting the tree down as the only option. But the council have said that public safety is paramount when assessing damaged trees, a branch crashing down could kill someone, and that the tree is not being cut down but just monolithed."