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Synonyms

big business

American  

noun

  1. large business, commercial, and financial firms taken collectively, especially when considered as a group having shared attitudes and goals and exercising control over economic policy, politics, etc.

  2. any large organization of a noncommercial nature resembling this.

  3. any large business enterprise.

big business British  

noun

  1. large commercial organizations collectively, esp when considered as exploitative or socially harmful

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
big business Cultural  

  1. Large corporations, as opposed to small individually or family-owned businesses.

Etymology

Origin of big business

An Americanism dating back to 1900–05

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

“We kept talking about these tropes from ‘80s movies of slobs versus snobs,” and how it mirrored the mom-and-pop shop versus big business dynamic.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 20, 2026

Yet credit-card interest is big business, Pierce and other researchers wrote.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 19, 2026

An equally American facet of the game is that it’s a big business.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 3, 2026

The company, which makes transformers and switches and does big business with data centers, could benefit from booming energy demand tied to AI.

From Barron's • Feb. 3, 2026

“I don’t know. Maybe some people. But I don’t have the right family name with a big business to inherit. My mother wanted to retire here.”

From "American Street" by Ibi Zoboi

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.