Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Synonyms

corner the market

Idioms  

  1. Buy all or most of a commodity or stock so that its price goes up. For example, In a famous maneuver the Hunt brothers cornered the market in silver. This idiom uses corner in the sense of “drive would-be buyers into a corner.” [Early 1800s]

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.

Prices more than quadrupled, reaching nearly $50 in early 1980 before regulators stepped in and unraveled the Hunt brothers’ attempt to corner the market.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 9, 2025

The issuers are trying to corner the market and create their own ecosystem.

From MarketWatch • Oct. 28, 2025

Leave it to designer Kiko Kostadinov to corner the market on bizarro motor racing clothing.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 21, 2025

They will corner the market on opening-round home games.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 8, 2024

But I had a massive hard drive stuffed with MP3s, which is why Sizwe was excited when he saw me mixing—he saw a way to corner the market.

From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah

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.