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• empire builder
  empire builder

  noun

  a person who plans or works to extend dominion or control, as over territory, political organizations, or business enterprises.
• empire-builder
  empire-builder

  noun

  a person who seeks extra power for its own sake, esp by increasing the number of his subordinates or staff

empire builder

American  

noun

1. a person who plans or works to extend dominion or control, as over territory, political organizations, or business enterprises.

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empire-builder British  

noun

1. informal a person who seeks extra power for its own sake, esp by increasing the number of his subordinates or staff

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Other Word Forms

• empire-building
  noun

Etymology

Origin of empire builder

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

empire builder empire-builder

CEO and controlling shareholder Brian Roberts has been viewed as an empire builder, but that could be changing.

From Barron's ● Dec. 12, 2025

His notion of fast-casual mirrors that of Italian empire builder Fabio Trabocchi, another discerning Washington tastemaker.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 25, 2022

While officials announced that the school would be renamed after Matobo — also called Matopo or Matopos by visitors — the president joked about the British empire builder.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 10, 2017

But given the direction of his career over the last decade, his image is now more like that of an empire builder.

From New York Times ● Sep. 7, 2012

The tireless empire builder was again on the Pacific Coast in 1858.

From The Story of Russia by Bergen, R. Van

Barely two months after the paper’s owner and publisher, the L.A. empire-builder Harrison Gray Otis, had taken over the paper, he ran this florid apologia for the meager, capricious river:

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2022

And then there’s that dialectical puzzler, Steven Spielberg, the wunderkind turned empire-builder, who has long played the hero and the villain of modern Hollywood.

From New York Times ● Jul. 2, 2020

Zimbabwe began life as a colony of the British South African Company in the late 19th Century, run by the British empire-builder, Cecil Rhodes.

From BBC ● Nov. 15, 2017

For centuries it was a steppingstone between Europe and the Middle East, with almost every East Mediterranean empire-builder — Persians, Romans, Venetians, Ottomans — passing through a t one time or another.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 13, 2015

He was no common man, but an empire-builder in the brave days of old.

From William Black The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada by Maclean, John